


the truth is the stars are falling

by thebestworstthing



Series: Cause and Effect [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst, Anxiety, Guilt, Injury, Lance (Voltron) Has ADHD, Lance (Voltron) is a Mess, Langst, M/M, Magic-Induced Epilepsy, Major Character Injury, Memory Loss, Mood Swings, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Seizures, Self Care, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Suicidal Thoughts, but subtle - Freeform, platonic cuddles, tags to be updated
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-10
Updated: 2017-08-14
Packaged: 2018-10-30 08:05:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 25,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10872621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebestworstthing/pseuds/thebestworstthing
Summary: Lance struggles to find his place in the team while coming to terms with everything that happened during his capture.





	1. rain down and destroy me

**Author's Note:**

> hi! if you haven't read "And We Go Where The Stars Take Us" yet this won't make much sense, so go read that first please and thank you!! 
> 
> (it's the first part of this series so find it by clicking on the series link)

Lance steps out of the healing pod with all the grace of someone who just spent seven days frozen in cryostasis, that is to say, he flops down as his legs refuse to cooperate and shrieks loudly as his face comes _this_ close to hitting the ground before Keith’s arms catch him around the waist, slowing his descent. Overall, not a good way to end seven days of healing.

 

He is far too cold, a tragic aftereffect of being frozen, and his head feels like mush; he can’t seem to hold a coherent thought for longer than a few seconds, the thoughts drifting away like smoke before he can focus on them. Lance casts his mind back, desperate for some understanding of what happened to put him in the pod but he comes up empty. The only thing he can think of is that in the battle they were in ( _yesterday? The day before?_ ), he must have taken a bigger hit than he realised. There’s also the sinking feeling that he can’t remember something; a blank void where there should be something, _anything_ , to tell him what happened.

 

Lance shakes his head to try and clear the cobwebs only to realise that in the time he’s been thinking about what happens, people have been trying to talk to him. He sees Shiro’s mouth moving but his brain feels too sluggish to even pick up the words.

 

He’s sat on the floor, Pidge and Hunk are crouched beside him, Keith is sat cross-legged next to him and Shiro is knelt by Lance’s stretched out legs. Lance feels crowded by them all, but he still appreciates their efforts in trying to comfort him. There’s a pile of pillows and blankets a few feet away, he wonders briefly if they had a sleepover while he was frozen. Looks like it would have been fun, he makes a mental note to force them to have a group sleepover one day. For team bonding and all that.

 

“What happened?” Lance asks, voice cracking with misuse. He rubs the bridge of his nose because he has always had an excellent memory but now he can’t remember anything and it’s scaring him more than it should. He doesn’t miss the silence that follows and he looks up, Shiro’s face seems to be full of something akin to pity that makes Lance’s gut twist in an unpleasant way, the rest of them look shocked and Lance tries to remain calm as he battles the wave of anxiety that rises within.

 

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Keith asks, his voice is weirdly soft. Lance gets the feeling that he missed something really important because there is no way Keith would be that nice if it wasn’t justified. Or he felt guilty.

 

“That fight? The really intense one where I was hit but my armour took most of the shot and I was just a bit bruised. I must have been hurt more than I realised.” Lance says, there’s a brief second where Keith’s eyes flash with something that looks like sadness and Lance wishes more than ever he could know what happened but at the same time he gets the feeling that he doesn’t really want to know. It’s a contradiction that burns inside him, setting his insides alight with fear.

 

“Lance,” Keith starts, then Shiro puts a hand on his shoulder and flashes him a meaningful look that Lance can’t quite decipher and Keith stops talking.

 

“Lance, go get changed and shower and we’ll discuss everything over food, okay?” Shiro says and Lance nods before walking away on wobbly legs with the _awful_ feeling that he’s being ushered away so they can discuss whatever Lance can’t remember.

 

He tries to ignore the hushed whispers as he leaves. He tries to pretend the sinking feeling in his stomach is hunger, not anxiety. It doesn’t work.

 

Lance undresses quickly, throwing the white pod suit onto the ground and stepping under the stream of hot water. The showers are easily the best thing about the castle; if it wasn’t for the consistent hot water and steady water pressure, Lance would have gone insane. As he washes, he starts to relax and lets the tension soak out of his body and drain away with the water.

 

He’s halfway through lathering shampoo on his hair when he notices it, the circular scar on his stomach. It’s about an inch wide and the white skin is raised thickly, it’s clearly a new scar but he has no idea when it could have happened. It contrasts horribly with his tanned skin. Lance traces his fingers over the scar gently, a phantom spike of pain shoots through him, radiating around the area he had touched. It throbs dully, giving him an indication of just how painful this wound had been.

 

 _Ok,_ Lance thinks _, what the fuck._

 

After that, he showers quickly, the desire for answers far outweighing the desire to feel clean. He’s getting dressed, pulling on some sweatpants and a t-shirt when he notices how skinny he looks. And, sure, Lance has always been just verging on the edge of being underweight, but now he looks positively ill. His ribs are clearly visible, he can trace his fingers in the gap between each one, his hip bones are sharper than they previously were, the skin around them appears to be pulled tighter over the bone underneath. His face looks gaunt; the dark bags under his eyes make it look like he’s gone for several weeks without sleeping, not spent several days sleeping in cryostasis.

 

Overall, Lance looks like he was sick for a long time, not like he was stuck in a healing pod for a few days. _What the hell happened?_

 

He pushes down the growing feeling of discomfort and focuses on pulling his clothes on. Lance doesn’t even bother to towel dry his hair before he’s running out the door towards the dining hall and tiny droplets of water run down the side of his face and the nape of his neck, chilling his skin. He hears voices as he gets closer and slows down, stopping where he can hear them clearly but they can’t see him.

 

“So, what are we gonna tell him?” Pidge asks, her voice is soft and caring and she sounds close to tears.

 

“The truth?” Keith says, “We can’t exactly _not_ tell him.” Lance almost snorts, as if it would be that easy.

 

“Shiro, what do you think? I’d hate to lie to him, but you’re the only one who has experience in this type of thing so what would you do?” Hunk says.

 

 _This type of thing?_ The seed of anxiety blooms in Lance’s chest and all of a sudden, he doesn’t want to know what happened at all, he wants to remain blissfully unaware. He can’t though, he needs to know the truth with a burning desire that he feels will surely eat him up inside.

 

He remembers the phrase _curiosity killed the cat._ He swallows, wondering how this could relate to his situation, and prepares himself to walk in the room when he hears Shiro talk.

 

“I think we see how much he remembers before deciding what to do, maybe he’s remembered more now that he has had time to adjust to being out of the pod, we all know how disorientating that can be.”

 

Lance has been out of the healing pod for less than an hour and he’s already tired. He doesn’t even need to think before he walks in and starts ranting because he’s just so tired and scared and _confused_.

 

Because, sure, maybe the cat was killed by its own curiosity, _but satisfaction brought it back._

 

“Okay, you’re all going to tell me exactly what happened before I was in the healing pod. None of that _‘waiting to tell the truth’_ bullshit or lying to me. Tell me every single detail because I know for a _fact_ that whatever happened was probably one hundred percent horrific.” Lance lifts up his shirt so the scar is clearly visible. “I didn’t get this _ugly fucking thing_ during the battle, I didn’t lose this much weight from spending seven days in a healing pod and I definitely don’t deserve to be lied to about this.” His voice cracks on the last few words and Lance’s throat and eyes burn with the threat of tears, the emotions from the day finally catching up with him.

 

Shiro winces slightly at seeing the scar and eyes it for a few seconds, there’s a pensive look on his face; as if he’s thinking about something that Lance won’t understand. Lance notices it and files it away for future reference in case they won’t tell him anything. There are a few seconds of silence where they all seem to look at each other as if trying to communicate silently.

 

Shiro stands up, “We can’t tell you, Lance, not yet anyway.” His voice is calming and his words are spoken slowly, Lance realises Shiro is treating him like he is trying to diffuse a bomb, he’s not yet sure if that is a good or bad thing.

 

“Why not?” Lance asks, crossing his arms over his chest. The floor is cold underneath his bare feet and he really wishes he had thought to put socks on.

 

“We think the memory loss could be magic induced.” Hunk says. His friend genuinely looks bad about not being able to tell the whole truth, Lance feels his anger softening but he’s still confused.

 

“ _Magic induced_?” He repeats, blinking slowly. “What the fuck?”

 

“There’s a lot of stuff that happened to you,” Pidge starts, then gets a warning jab to the ribs from Hunk. “We need to run a few tests to see what is causing the memory loss; it could be injury or trauma related or it could be magic related. If it is magic, then there is a chance that telling you what happened could trigger some kind of dormant magic that Haggar could have engineered? I’m not sure – it’s complicated – Allura explained it to me, go find her if you want a clearer explanation.” Pidge sighs and pushes her glasses further up her nose.

 

“Wait what?” Lance says, the words refusing to stick in his brain. “Are you saying that I may have magic induced memory loss?”

 

Pidge looks up at him. “Lance that’s exactly what I just said. Did the magic make you dumb too?”  She says, smiling slightly so he knows she doesn’t mean it. Lance feels relieved that she’s at least trying to return to their usual friendly banter, for a second, it makes him feel like there isn’t something terribly wrong.

 

“ _He doesn’t really contribute much anyway.”_ Lance remembers his teammates voices, a dark room, and the almost crippling feeling that he was all alone.

 

He supposes this is the universes way of reminding him that something _is_ terribly wrong.

 

He blinks and the world spins for a second and he stumbles, throwing his arms out for balance. There’s a sick feeling in his stomach and Lance wonders briefly if he hurt his ribs before going in the pod because _it shouldn’t be this hard to breath, Jesus._

Lance’s lungs burn with the need for oxygen and he takes small shuddering gasps. The world seems to spin again and Lance lets himself fall to the floor, collapsing onto his knees, his breath coming in faster pants now. He’s vaguely aware of someone touching his arm, of voices talking around him. He doesn’t pay it any attention and lets it fade into background noise until Shiro clicks his fingers in front of Lance’s face and then suddenly there appears to be too much sound. Each word seems to be spoken twenty times louder than necessary and it makes his ears ring and does nothing to quell the building pressure behind his eyes.

 

It’s everywhere, he’s being suffocated, and Lance just wants to be _alone._ Shiro sits in front of him, counting softly and Lance tries to match his breathing to the quiet numbers.

 

At first, it doesn’t work and Lance continues to hyperventilate. There are tears streaming down his face but at this point he’s too exhausted to care about self-preservation. He doesn’t even fully know _why_ he is crying and now Lance feels vaguely embarrassed.

 

Eventually, he manages to get his breathing to _kind of_ match Shiro’s, to the point where Lance is only hiccupping every 30 seconds as opposed to every few seconds. It’s an improvement.

 

Lance is aware that he’s staring straight ahead at the white wall in front of him, but he wants to avoid the questions of his team (who he can feel sitting around him and staring). It works for a while until Shiro thinks Lance has calmed down enough and he asks the first question gently.

 

“What happened, Lance?”

 

To be honest, Lance isn’t sure how to answer. _What did happen?_ He is around seventy-nine-point-five percent certain that he had a flashback but it didn’t seem to make enough sense to trigger a panic attack, nor did it seem real enough to have been something he lived through. He swallows past the lump in his throat, does this mean that somehow, somewhere, he remembers what happened?  

 

“I – I don’t know.” Lance hates how vulnerable the crack in his voice made him feel.

 

“Did you have a flashback?” Shiro asks, placing a gentle hand on Lance’s arm. It helps ground him, which is nicer than the weird floating feeling he was starting to get so he tries to smile back in thanks, he thinks it might look more like a grimace.

 

“I think?” He says after a few moments, “I’m not sure what it was, just a fragment of a voice that sounded like Pidge’s and a feeling of being cold and alone, it was more like an impression than an actual memory.”

 

Pidge looks at him, her brown eyes wide and swimming with unshed tears, “I’m sorry.”

 

Lance frowns. “What for?”

 

“I think I might have triggered the flashback and I’m so so sorry.” Lance wants to make a joke about how that’s the nicest he’s ever seen her be, but the words don’t come and it wouldn’t even cheer her up at this point. Instead he smiles gently and says “It’s not your fault. I was the one who wanted to know.”

 

She smiles back softly but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “On the positive side, if that was a flashback it means that your memories are probably locked away due to trauma rather than magic or injury.”

 

Lance fixes her with a pointed stare, “How is that a good thing?”

 

Pidge doesn’t answer, instead she looks down almost guiltily. An awkward silence settles over the paladins and Lance feels too vulnerable to be sat out surrounded by them. He longs for the comfort and familiarity of his own bed, the hunger has long since faded. Just as he is about to open his mouth and request to sleep, an alarm sounds from the castle.

 

Lance knows this one all too well – it’s the distress signal. They’re going to need to fight.

 

He can barely even stand up, how is he meant to fight? Lance sighs dramatically, before pushing himself up.

 

“Woah, woah, woah.” Hunk says. “Where do you think you’re going?”

 

Lance stares at him. “To help out?” He says like it is the most obvious thing in the world, which of course, it is. They need him to form Voltron.

 

“Nope. Not on my watch.” Hunk says. “You are going to bed, let us handle the Galra for now.”

 

Lance really _really_ wants to agree with Hunk, but he’s a paladin now. Defender of the universe. He can’t skip a day because he is feeling a little under the weather. They already think he’s the weak link of Voltron, he can’t give them reason to validate it.

 

“I can’t man. What if you need Voltron and I’m here getting some beauty sleep? I’m not going to let you down.”

 

“Lance, you won’t be letting us down.” Shiro says, placing a hand on Lance’s shoulder. He notices that Keith and Pidge have already gone. “You need to rest.”

 

Lance sighs, before agreeing, giving in to the demands on his body. He wants to protest but he knows that Hunk and Shiro are both too stubborn to let him go anywhere except his bedroom. Defender of the universe be damned, Lance just wants a good night’s sleep.

 

He follows Hunk and Shiro out of the dining hall and then breaks away from them to head down the corridor towards his quarters. Lance actually makes it all the way to be laid down ready to sleep, but all he can hear are the sounds of fighting going on outside and he is worried to the point of nausea about his friends.

 

Lance sits up and yawns begrudgingly. He pulls off his pyjamas, trading the soft fabric for the tougher material of the jumpsuit. He pulls on his armour and races out, overcome with adrenaline at the thought of fighting. He reaches the control room and asks Allura for a quick summary of what to expect. She protests briefly, until Lance points out that everyone is getting their asses handed to them out there, then she finally says.

 

“The Galra are attempting to take over a peaceful planet who requested our help. We need to lure the ships away from the planet and take them out before any soldiers reach the ground.”

 

Lance sighs, this definitely sounds like the kind of thing that would require Voltron, or at least all of them present. He thanks Allura and pulls on his helmet, the comms picking up his teammates voices. He hears Pidge swear and he presumes she was hit with something.

 

The journey to Blue appears to take twice as long as usual, he isn’t sure whether it’s tiredness or trepidation. Just as Lance lands in the pilot seat, he hears Keith say “We need Lance. We need to form Voltron.”

 

Lance smirks, before saying. “Glad to know I can be of use.” As Blue flies out of the hangar to join the others. He’s met with a variety of responses, Hunk tells Lance that unless he gets his ass right back inside he will beat him into tomorrow, Shiro and Keith both seem relieved (Shiro slightly less so) and Pidge just seems indifferent but Lance guesses that she is secretly pleased because she doesn’t take Hunk’s side and tell him to go back. Instead she greets him with a “Don’t let this go to your ego.”

 

It’s Shiro who gives the order to form Voltron and they fly in the perfectly practised formation. The familiarity of it calms Lance down. It makes everything seem like normal; like he didn’t wake up this morning after spending far too long in a healing pod after some awful event he can’t remember.

 

They move like a well-oiled machine, without even needing to talk they know exactly what to do and how to do it. The battle is over quickly after that, evidence that all of the team bonding activities paid off. Lance feels ecstatic as he flies back to the hanger, the adrenaline of fighting runs through his veins and he relishes it before the exhaustion catches up with him and he inevitably crashes.

 

He barely registers the warnings coming through the comms and looks up just in time to see a purple blast headed right for him. He jolts his lion to the left quickly, praying the shot will miss him.

 

It doesn’t.

 

The particle barrier activates just as the blast hits it, the purple spreads up around the shield, encasing him in light far too hot and bright to withstand for any length of time. He grunts as his lion jerks violently with the force. There’s a few seconds where the light burns so bright it imprints on his retinas and his hands shake with the intensity of keeping Blue steady, then, the power of his lion splutters, before fading completely. Blue drops like a dead weight, free falling through the abyss of space. Lance panics, ignoring the worried voices in the comms, and swears in Spanish, willing Blue to turn back on.

 

She does, but something is very wrong. The comforting blue of the main screen is replaced with an all too familiar purple, but at least blue stops falling. Haggar’s face appears on his screen and Lance’s insides freeze. He can still hear his team through the comms but they sound distorted and distant, it does nothing to calm his anxiety.

 

“Hello, Paladin.” Haggar says, her voice is sticky sweet and laced with something that Lance can’t quite decipher. He resists the urge to be sick as a wave of nausea hits him.

 

“What do you want?” Lance asks, he looks out of the eyes of Blue, the particle barrier around his lion has been erected, only now it is a deep purple. _God_ , he thinks, _the Galra are really attached to their aesthetic_.

 

“You don’t remember?” The druid says and the worried voices of his team mates fade to nothing more than background noise.

 

Lance opens his mouth to speak but the words never leave his mouth, instead, an image appears in his mind. Lance sees his teammates kneeled around a throne, Lance is facing them, there is someone behind him talking. He knows where they are, this is a Galra ship. He sees them in his daily life and then again in the worst of his nightmares.

 

Lance hears what the person is saying at the wrong time.

 

_“Shoot them all.”_

And suddenly he remembers everything: the pain, the fear, the loneliness. The feeling that maybe nobody was actually going to come for him. The purple fades from the lion’s screen and Blue returns to her freefall, cold and lifeless.

 

Lance lets it happen.

 

He is kind-of aware of someone else picking up his lion, of moving without his own consent, but it doesn’t seem to matter. Everything feels far too distant to comprehend right now.

 

He can still hear his teammates talking, Lance feels sick.

 

The lion lands and Lance sits for a few dobashes, before he stumbles out, pulling off his helmet in the process. The rest of the team are waiting outside blue, the particle barrier having been raised again at some point. Lance sees them and walks slowly; his legs feel like jelly and his head spins. He’s filled with the urge to check they’re all okay and alive, but also to run away and never see any of them again. The juxtaposition makes him feel faint.

 

He catches Pidge’s eye, thinks of the image of her tiny body lying dead, and leans to the side and vomits. Immediately, there is someone’s hands on his shoulders, his helmet is removed from his grip and there’s a hand rubbing his back gently.

 

“Lance, what happened?” Shiro asks, “Are you okay?”

 

Lance wasn’t aware that he was crying until a fat tear drips down from his cheek and hits the floor. He gags again, his stomach contracts painfully at its emptiness.

 

“I remember.” He says, throat raw from stomach acid. “I remember everything.”

 

There’s a sad sigh from in front of him and suddenly, Lance is enveloped in a hug. “I’m so sorry.” Hunk whispers in his ear and Lance lets the floodgates break, the thin walls holding him together crumble. He sobs violently against Hunk, the other mutters calming words and meaningless phrases to try and sooth Lance. It doesn’t work.

 

His mind spins a million miles an hour as he tries to understand, to process everything that happened. Lance tries to organise his thoughts, to separate dream from reality, Galra mind trick from Galra torture. In the end, it all blurs together into one unfathomable bundle of _what the hell._

He finds that his mind starts to feel foggy, his thoughts feeling heavy and distant in his mind. Something settles in his stomach, a thick feeling of complete and utter dread that seems to freeze his insides.

 

Lance breathes in, then out. The world blurs at the edges, bright colours fading into monotone greys, and he collapses forward against Hunk as his legs turn to jello.

 

The last thing Lance registers is someone saying his name, then the world disappears completely, leaving him alone in the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you enjoyed this story, leave kudos/comments down below!
> 
> [buy me a coffee, maybe?](https://ko-fi.com/A14216Z6) thank you!


	2. miles to go before i sleep

When he comes around, the first thing he is aware of is the pain. It’s dull, a muscular ache more than actual injury, but it still weighs his limbs down. There’s a familiar coppery taste in his mouth and he lets it dribble out of his lips, unsure if he could coordinate his limbs enough to stop it.

 

Somehow, Lance is laid on his side on the ground. There’s something soft underneath his head which smells suspiciously like Keith’s musky aftershave that Lance _hates_ with a burning passion because it smells cheap and too much like toilet cleaner for his taste. His paladin armour has been unzipped so that it no longer fits tight around his neck.

 

Lance swallows, tasting more of the copper, and tries to open his eyes. He can see – to an extent – everything is pretty blurry so he blinks again and when he reopens his eyes it’s to a decent amount of clarity and lights that are so bright they make his eyes water while also imprinting dozens of flashing colours on the inside of his eyelids.

 

He is aware of how thick his tongue feels in his mouth, Lance tries to lick his lips and gets nothing but the feeling of a dry mouth and the metallic taste of blood.

 

Huh, he must have bitten his tongue.

 

Lance tries to open his eyes again, and is greeted with the image of someone ( _Hunk?_ ) knelt in front of him, his mouth moves as if he is talking but Lance can’t hear anything besides the ringing in his ears.

 

That should worry him, but at the minute, he’s too tired to care about anything other than how heavy his eyelids feel. Lance gives in to the exhaustion and lets himself pass out.

 

When he next comes to, it’s to the sound of hurried whispers and the beeping of a machine. His entire body hurts, his muscles aching like he’s ran a marathon or spent all day on the training deck fighting with Keith, but at least he feels more coherent. He tries to lift a hand to his head, to rub the bleariness out of his eyes, but he lifts his arm up an inch and it takes enough effort to wear him out again so he lets it flop back down to his side.

 

He takes a quick inventory, he’s laid on a soft bed with softer blankets covering the lower half of his body. His paladin armour has been removed, he’s now lying in some sweatpants and a t-shirt. The air smells sanitised, there’s an intense aroma of bleach and other cleaning agents. He must be in the infirmary then.

 

But how did he get here?

 

Lance casts his mind back thinking about what could have happened to cause him to end up where he is. He remembers crying against Hunk then, nothing?

 

While he is busy taking note of his surroundings, he ceases to notice how the talking stopped. Someone touches his hand gently and Lance jolts his eyes open in panic, fully ready to lash out if needed.

 

His eyes meet Keith’s violet ones and Lance visibly relaxes, his tense muscles unwind and the ache in them grows even more prominent. He tries his best to ignore it.

 

“What happened?” Lance croaks out, his voice is sore and his throat is dry. Christ, he longs for some water.

 

As if he read his mind, Keith walks away and returns with a glass of water, a straw positioned so he can drink it. Someone, Shiro probably, manhandles him into a sitting up position so that Lance won’t choke on the water. It would be embarrassing if Lance had any dignity left after the day’s events. Instead, he lets himself be moved with only minimal complaining.

 

The cool liquid splashes down his throat, quenching his thirst. He gulps some down until Keith moves the glass away, Lance moves his head after it greedily until Keith says, “if you carry on drinking that fast you’ll throw up.” As much as Lance hates to admit it, Keith is right, he settles for glaring at the red paladin, who simply rolls his eyes at Lance.

 

Shiro nods and Lance catches the movement out of the corner of his eye. The rest of the paladins, as well as Allura and Coran are gathered around his bed, this is always a bad sign – they only all gather if something serious has happened; at any given time, at least two of them will be elsewhere so the sudden abundance of people beside him is rather startling. Lance asks his question again, miffed with the lack of an answer.

 

“You had a seizure.” Shiro says, bluntly. Lance appreciates the honestly, even if it raises more questions than it answers.

 

“What kind?” Lance asks, his younger sister had epilepsy and he knew from experience that there were dozens of diverse kinds of seizures. From the aching in his muscles, he has an idea but he doesn’t want to automatically assume the worst.

 

“Generalised tonic-clonic, or grand mal. Whichever you prefer.” Pidge says, pushing her glasses further up while still being engrossed in whatever she’s reading on the screen, it looks to be the Altean equivalent of a heart monitor.

 

Lance _really_ hates when he’s right.

 

“How bad was it?” Lance asks, kind of dreading the answer.

 

“It was around five minutes long.” Hunk says and Lance feels his mouth open in shock because his brain went five minutes without a steady supply of oxygen _how is he not dead or at least comatose?_ “If it hadn’t been for Shiro’s knowledge around this then you probably would have died because none of us had a clue what to do. You bit your tongue pretty bad and could have choked on your own blood if he hadn’t turned you on your side.” He feels a new spike of appreciation for their leader.

 

Lance wishes more than ever for normality, to trade the vastness of Space for the familiarity of Varadero Beach. He definitely doesn’t wish for uncalled for seizures or Galra kidnappings.

 

“What caused it?” He asks, because someone has to have an answer to why a reasonably healthy person just randomly had a seizure.

 

“We did a few scans, to see if anything was wrong in your brain that the healing pod couldn’t fix, but nothing showed up. Coran suggested that it was magic-induced epilepsy.”

 

“ _Magic-induced epilepsy?_ ” Lance repeats, because there is no way that’s a real thing.

 

“Yep, apparently, sustained expose to magic can trigger a temporary change in the chemical imbalance of Altean brains and Coran suspects this is similar but projecting differently because of biological differences.” Pidge answers, still looking at the monitors as if they will reveal some deep secret to her. “Usually, it makes an Altean experience effects similar to a concussion but Coran thinks the genetic differences might have amplified the effects.”

 

“Are you saying that that bitch Haggar fucked up my mind with her magic torture and fucking creepy mind tricks?” Lance isn’t sure where the burst of anger comes from but Pidge flinches anyway. Lance realises she thinks that he is angry at her and sighs. “I’m sorry for snapping it’s just,” Lance can’t think of the right words to articulate the growing mass of anxiety, confusion and stress that has rooted inside of him. He gestures instead to try and get his point across, his brow contorted into a frown.

 

“I get it,” She says, smiling empathetically at him. “This is tough on you, on all of us, so it’s okay to be angry and upset at what happened.”

 

Who let the youngest be the wisest of the group? It’s just not fair.

 

Lance feels the onslaught of tears and blinks quickly, trying not to cry in front of anyone else again that day. Luckily, he’s saved from any further embarrassment by his stomach gurgling loudly and the almost painful reminder of how long it has been since he ate actual food. With that, Hunk stands, grabs Lance’s hand, and tries to pull him up, until Lance winces and groans and he remembers the seizure and lets go of Lance abruptly. Instead, he walks to the side and before Lance can even protest, Hunk has picked him up bridal style.

 

Lance struggles against his grip, wiggling as much as his exhausted muscles will allow, but his efforts are futile. Eventually, he goes limp, resigning himself to his fate. The other paladins laugh at his escape attempts and Lance smiles against Hunk’s chest, glad he could make them laugh even just for a second, even if it is at his expense. Besides, he secretly enjoys having Hunk carry him, the other is warm and soft and smells familiar, it’s calming to Lance.

 

Lance lets Hunk carry him to the dining hall, before whining until he’s placed down in a chair. The other paladins take a seat apart from Hunk who busies himself with preparing some sort of food that Lance can’t identify from where he’s sat.

 

He sits, staring ahead at the table and listening to the quiet chatter around him, until Keith nudges his arm softly.

 

“Are you okay?” he asks quietly. Lance thinks it is a stupid question, of course he isn’t okay. Lance doesn’t think he’s ever been as not-okay in his life.

 

“Yes.” He says anyway.

 

Keith’s violet eyes stare at his face for slightly longer than Lance is comfortable with, of course Keith knows that he was lying but at the same time, the other also knows exactly what is wrong. So why is he reading his face like it’ll tell him something he doesn’t already know?

 

Lance wants to crack a joke, to lighten the somewhat sombre mood that settled over the table, however his mind is blank. He is almost painfully hungry and apparently, passing out after seizing doesn’t really help with exhaustion because his eyelids are heavy and his mind is swimming.

 

He crosses his arms on the table, then rests his head down on his arms. Lance finds his eyes slipping shut, he’s just balancing on the edge of unconsciousness when Hunk places a plate down in front of him, the noise jolts him awake and Lance flinches away so fast he almost falls out of his seat. His heart pounds in his chest.

 

“Shit man, you scared me.” Lance says, trying to pass it off as a joke, Hunk at least has the decency to look apologetic. Lance doesn’t miss the concerned look Shiro shoots towards him.

 

The food smells good, it’s a variety of the food goo that Hunk cooked up just before everything happened. According to Hunk, it is supposed to taste like chicken. Lance tastes a bit of it and is surprised at the similarity, of course the texture is completely wrong and even thinking about it makes Lance a little queasy, but the goo tastes decent which is a start.

 

Lance eats until his stomach feels full, which doesn’t really take that long considering the rather limited diet he was forced to live on with the Galra. Then, he stands, excusing himself from the quiet chatter of the table and turning down the offers to walk him back to his room because he feels fine currently, great even.

 

He makes it about ten meters before he’s using the wall for support, another five before his legs threaten to collapse. Another two until Keith comes up behind him and wraps one of Lance’s arms over his shoulder to help him back.

 

Lance can’t even bring himself to make a snarky comment at the red paladin, he’s just immensely grateful for the support. Keith smells faintly of sweat and his t-shirt is soft under Lance’s arm. His long hair brushes against Lance’s skin, gently tickling the blue paladin. Keith’s pale face smiles at him softly and he walks slowly beside Lance, his grip on him never once faltering.

 

The walk to Lance’s room feels a thousand time longer than it actually is and by the time they make it there, Lance’s muscles ache and he’s trembling in Keith’s arms. The other doesn’t make any comment on it, for which Lance is thankful.

 

Lance feels like a stretched piece of elastic that will either spring back into place or snap apart, every part of his body feels tense and as Keith bids him goodnight and leaves the room, Lance’s throat begins to burn.

 

He pushes it down, focuses on how tired he feels as opposed to how panicked he feels. His mind still feels too jumbled to truly understand everything and Lance briefly wishes he could go back to not knowing what happened. When he was younger, his mom’s favourite phrase was “ _ignorance is bliss_ ” and he never truly understood it until now.

 

Lance doesn’t even bother to change into his pyjamas before he flops face first into his bed and shuts his eyes, desperate for this day to be over.

 

He’s almost fully asleep when he hears it, a shuffling coming from outside. The logical part of his mind identifies the sound as Keith heading into his room, this is verified as the door _whooshs_ open, but all Lance hears is the mechanical footsteps of the sentries pacing past his cell door and suddenly the room is too dark and it seems oppressive, the blankets on his bed are too confining and Lance feels _trapped_.

 

His breath comes in quick pants as he struggles to push the blankets away and turn on the light. Lance rubs at his eyes as the tears start to flow down his face and he sobs quietly into his hands, years of sharing a room with his brother then with Hunk at the garrison conditioning him into being a quiet crier for fear of being caught.

 

It doesn’t really help when all Lance wants is to scream and cry as loudly as he can.

 

Eventually, he calms down enough to realise that maybe sleeping with the light off is not his finest idea, so then he turns the light down to its lowest setting so that the room is encased in a soft glow. The light is bright enough so that it can’t be associated with anything galra related, but also dark enough that he will eventually be able to get some sleep.

 

It works, as Lance lies back down he finds himself feeling calm as his eyelids begin to close and he starts to drift into unconsciousness.

 

Or at least, it works for a few hours until he shoots awake, sweating profusely, and tangled in the sheets yet again. The nightmare fades just as quickly as it arrived but it still leaves behind the emotions; the anxiety causes adrenaline to pump through his muscles, leaving him gasping for breath and trembling as his heart beats quickly in his chest.

 

The panic wilts quickly as the nightmare drifts away, every time he blinks more and more of the images vanish from his mind. His mind spins as he wearily rubs his eyes, glancing to the clock to find out it’s only 3am CST (castle ship time).

 

_Great._

With a long, drawn-out sigh, Lance resigns himself to a lack of sleep and drags himself out of bed, only to be greeted with the reminder of yesterday’s seizure as his muscles ache and his legs threaten to collapse.

 

_Double great._

He rules out wandering around the castle and instead settles for some self-care. He begins by limping into the en-suite bathroom and running a nice hot bath, adding in a sample of some Altean soap Allura had given him. It fizzes in the hot water, spreading a soft pink colour across the bath. It smells like flowers and reminds Lance of a bath bomb his sister used once, she had dragged him into the bathroom to see the way the bath bomb had fizzed out pastel pink, her favourite colour at the time. The memory makes him smile faintly, but it turns bittersweet as he is overcome with an intense bout of homesickness.

 

With a sigh, he climbs into the tub. The hot water relaxes his body and he groans in relief as soothes his aching muscles. On the side of the bathtub rests a singular tube of muscle relief, given to each of them by Allura who said they’d need it for after the rigorous paladin training. She had been right of course, it works instantly to stop pulled muscles causing pain that could prevent training, so he decides to use that to his advantage.

 

Lathering a portion on his hands, he rubs it all along his arms and legs, massaging it into the tense muscles there. It works almost instantly and he relaxes further before washing away the greasy feeling it left on his skin.

 

Lance scrubs the rest of his skin clean, indulging in the spare time he has now to finish cleaning the sterile scent from his skin. Finally, he’s left with soft, clean skin and smelling of flowers and some spices he can’t identify.

 

It’s the closest to human he’s felt for weeks.

 

He decides to forgo going back to sleep in favour of getting dressed and wandering around the castle now that he is no longer in pain. It’s now close to 5am CST, which means that he is certain no one will be awake, leaving Lance alone to go wherever he pleases.

 

Without even intending to, his feet lead him towards a secret room on the ship, one he’s certain nobody else knows about. It’s a small alcove hidden by a fake wall, Lance had discovered it completely accidentally (by falling against the concealed switch) but had since decided to use it as a place for him to come and be alone.

 

The room in small, barely big enough for him to kneel up in, and about the same length across, there are cushions and pillows and blankets that he dragged here himself decorating the floor. The far wall is entirely made of glass, allowing him to look out of the ship at the super cool space things that they travel past, such as colourful nebulas, alien planets or even the odd ship passing by them.

 

Lance settles down, draping himself in a blanket to ward off the cold and leans against some pillows propped against the wall. He turns to stare out of the window.

 

It’s quiet and home-y and Lance finds the area calming. Not today though, now the vastness of space makes him feel lost and alone rather than comforted and every star in the distance reminds him of their star, _the sun_ , at home. He misses his family, his mom who would know exactly what to say and how to help him, his siblings proving a constant distraction and the meaningless chatter of his cousins whenever they would visit. It used to irritate him, now he misses it more than anything.

 

The thing he hates most about space, Lance decides, is how goddamn quiet it is.

 

With a sigh, Lance returns to leaning against the wall watching the stars twinkle in the distance. He tries to think about something soothing and friendly, but even without his consent, his thoughts wander to his time with the Galra.

 

Most of it is just a blur, as if these memories belong to someone else or he’s looking through a distorted lens, but a few distinct things stick out. First, they never made him fight for entertainment. Surely, that would have been big news; watching a paladin of Voltron getting his ass kicked sure sounds like something they would find at least _mildly_ entertaining. But nope, they’d left him to stew in a dark cell for days, maybe even weeks, at a time. He isn’t even sure how many people knew he’d been captured because, after all, the only people he really saw were the Galra soldier and Haggar with her clan of druids.

 

Second, he’s struggling to differentiate between the freakily realistic Galra mind tricks and what actually happened. Which brings him into the third point: _he doesn’t remember escaping._

However, Lance _does_ remember the fake escapes, the fake Keith and his murdered fake teammates. He remembers not-Shiro holding out a glowing fake arm to help him up. He remembers it so clearly that, when compared to his own fuzzy memories, it seems impossible to doubt how _real_ it was.

 

Maybe, Lance muses, he didn’t really escape. Maybe tomorrow he’ll open his eyes to see the familiar darkness of the cell, feel the familiar sting of the cuffs against his wrist and ankles.

 

Maybe he won’t even wake up. He finds the thought oddly comforting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> leave kudos/comments if you enjoyed!
> 
> [buy me a coffee?](https://ko-fi.com/A14216Z6) thank you!


	3. roses white and dying light

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i dont remember if i even said this but this is very much a vent fic based on my own experiences of PTSD and emotional abuse ok trust me things are gonna get more intense and a /lot/ worse before they get better for lance! luckily, i'm in the "getting better" stage, but there's a while to go until he gets there so.. buckle up lads

Lance walks into breakfast fashionably late and is greeted by a parade of worried stares, he knows nobody will dare comment on his lateness but it doesn’t stop him apologising anyway. He tries to brush it off and act cool, but the reality is he fell asleep looking out at the stars and woke up five minutes ago with barely enough time to run into his room and splash some cold water on his face to make him look more alive than he feels.

 

He yawns as he takes a seat and Shiro asks how he is. Hunk looks up curiously, awaiting whatever answer he’s going to give. Lance doesn’t want to disappoint so, he lies.

 

“I’m fine actually, good even.” He says, the words muffled slightly as he tries to disguise a yawn and ignore the distant pounding in his skull.

 

“Did you sleep well?” Shiro asks and Lance says yes again, they all know he’s lying by now but none are willing to breach that topic, probably too scared to disrupt the peace that has settled over everyone this morning.

 

“So, when do we start training again?” Lance asks, desperate for a hint of normalcy but also fully aware that his physical health has decreased and he needs to build up his fitness before they next have to fight hand-to-hand again.

 

“Tomorrow, or the day after perhaps, for you. Today for us.” Allura says, sliding into the room to stand beside the end of the table. “We will only be practising long-range weapon accuracy, so you won’t miss anything.”

 

Lance sighs anyway because long range fighting is his speciality – he’s the team’s sharpshooter for heaven’s sake – and they can get fucked if they think he’s missing out on this. “I can still practise my shooting.” He says to defend himself.

 

“Yes, you can, but you went through something traumatic and you’d be better resting for today.” Shiro says, his voice calm but all Lance wants to do is roll his eyes because he isn’t a child; this isn’t a sprained ankle that’ll get better with rest.

 

“Shooting is calming for me anyway.” Lance turns on his best pair of puppy-dog eyes. “ _Please_ , Shiro.” He begs. It seems to have the desired effect, the hard line to Shiro’s posture softens and the black paladin sighs wearily.

 

“Then none of us will train today.” Shiro says after a moment and _dammit_ this is not the response Lance was hoping for. Out of the corner of his eye he can see Keith objecting to that idea but he is quickly shushed by Pidge.

 

“Shiro is right,” Allura jumps in. “You are not currently at your full strength, training would not currently be beneficial towards your recovery.”

 

She’s right and Lance despises it. Instead he settles for shovelling the food in his mouth as fast as he can and muttering angrily under his breath between mouthfuls.

 

“If we’re not training, what do you suggest we do?” Hunk asks, probably to fill the somewhat awkward silence that settled over the group (so much for a peaceful morning).

 

“Well I need help with some adjustments I’m making to the castle’s particle barrier and the healing pods could do with cleaning.” Coran announces as he walks into the room and sits in the chair beside Lance.

 

“I’ll clean the pods.” Lance says, he’s the one that was in them last so it only makes sense in his eyes.

 

“N-uh my boy, you will spend all day resting.” Coran says, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder as he says it.

 

Lance makes a _hrumf_ noise, trying hard to resist the urge to whine. He hates the way they’re treating him, like he’s made of shattered glass; fragile and broken beyond repair. It makes him feel weak, a seventh wheel, gives the voices plaguing him ever since his return a little bit of support.

 

He doesn’t voice these complaints, instead he finishes eating quickly and places his bowl in the sink, heading out without saying goodbye to try and find _something_ to distract him with. He browses the library for a while, but most of the books are in Altean so he has no chance of understanding them. After about twenty minutes, Lance finds a tablet resting on top of a table and when he switches it on, it reads in English. It turns out to be the Altean equivalent of an eBook, only a lot more advanced. Probably something Pidge has found and tinkered with until it translated into English.

 

He flicks through the variety of books stored on the device and finds one that might be interesting – even if he doesn’t understand a word – titled _Logistics of Interdimensional Travel_ , and walks back out to the hidden room, laying down among the pile of blankets and making himself comfortable before he begins to read the book.

 

It’s interesting, capturing his interest enough to almost make him forget that he’s on an alien ship, millions of miles away from earth. The book discusses theories and methods that mostly fly over Lance’s head but he reads it anyway, enjoying having something to focus on. Besides, the book comes filled with pretty pictures of alien planets with a high likelihood of being replicated in different dimensions due to the conditions they were created under. He uses the pictures to think of stories for each separate planet, wondering what the alien species that live there look like. A tiny voice inside his head questions if the planet has already been taken over by the Galra, perhaps the planet doesn’t even exist anymore; this book is over 10,000 years old.

 

It’s not a fun thought to acknowledge.

 

Eventually, his brain decides _nope you’ve spent too long sat down doing nothing_ and he becomes restless. His leg bounces uncomfortably and the words blur together on the page as his attention wavers. The room is far too quiet for Lance to focus on anything other than the sounds of the ship’s engine running or even his own breathing.

 

With a drawn-out sigh, Lance leaves to find something else to occupy his interests, sad that only two hours passed while he was reading instead of the dozens it felt like.

 

Eventually, after putting the reader back where he found it, he heads back to his room. This is just as boring as the other places to be but at least there’s no danger of running into friends that just want to help but are _really_ trying too hard.

 

God, Lance never thought he would tire of space, or being around people.

 

Perhaps, he muses, he isn’t even the same person he was on the day when he piloted blue away from earth.

 

It’s a strange concept, to have changed enough in barely half a year that he has become unrecognisable compared to the person he used to be. Lance wonders what his family would say if they could see him now.

 

Of course, the change is barely noticeable from the outside; perhaps he’s a little frailer, a little more worn out, but at the end of the day he laughs and he jokes and he flirts because it’s all he knows how to do. All he knows how to be. It’s safe and keeps the others around him unaware of just exactly how much he is struggling. It’s a shield; a protection for himself and the people around him.

 

Lance changes into some clean sweatpants and a fresh t-shirt and leaves his room, deciding that nothing good lies there anyway.

 

He walks around aimlessly until he ends up outside of the training deck, he glances left and right to check to see if anyone is coming, then pushes the door open.

 

The first thing he hears is the sound of fighting, the clash of metal and a soft grunt, and his first thought is _they lied to_ me, then he actually looks up and sees that it’s actually just Keith, which isn’t really surprising at all.

 

“Aren’t you supposed to be resting?” Keith says after calling out to end the training sequence.

 

“Yeah, but I’m rest _less_. Figured I’d come and do some stretches and stuff, maybe some light exercise because I’m just bored sitting around.” Lance is honest with Keith, praying the training-focused one of them won’t grass him up to Shiro or Allura.

 

“You really should be though,” Keith frowns slightly. “You should take this time to recover, get your strength back and relax.”

 

Lance almost laughs at him. “I’m here to relax, it is literally impossible for me to do anything but mentally scream if I do nothing but rest all day. It’s the way my brain is wired, man.”

 

Keith looks like he wants to argue back, instead he just shrugs and resumes the training sequence. Lance takes a seat on the padded floor at the opposite side to where Keith is training and begins his work. He remembers his younger sister, enrolled in a rhythmic gymnastics class, and fully convinced she would represent Cuba in the next Olympics, teaching him stretches so that he could help her practise and train on the beach during hot summer days.

 

He remembers watching her flip along the beach and shouting cheers of encouragement. As he stretches the muscles in his back out, he feels slightly closer to home.

 

“Wow,” Keith’s voice pulls him out of his daydream. “You’re actually surprisingly flexible.”

 

“Yep, the ladies love it.” Lance winks at him and Keith rolls his eyes. Lance relaxes and Keith picks up a cup of water and comes to sit down beside him. They sit in a calm silence and Lance lets his thoughts wander.

 

Without even meaning to, they stray back to that Galra ship and the cell and all the pain and confusion that comes with it. Lance remembers nothing after being found by an angry looking Keith and Shiro, other than blurs of colour and flashes and noises far too loud to comprehend. It burns inside him; a desire for answers that will never truly be quenched.

 

“What happened?” Lance asks, the words slipping out without his consent. Given Keith’s confused look, he elaborates. “After you found me on the ship, what happened?”

 

Keith’s face drops, then twists unpleasantly. “We rescued you, isn’t that all you need to know?”

 

Lance thinks back to the early hours of this morning, to being unsure whether or not he actually escaped. “No.” he says quietly, “It isn’t.”

 

Keith frowns slightly. “Why?”

 

“Because I need to know that I actually escaped, I don’t remember getting out and it scared me because what if all of this,” He gestures around at the ship, “isn’t real and I’m still stuck there, helpless, alone, and in pain.” Lance’s voice cracks on the last word.

 

Keith looks like he might argue, then looks down at his crossed legs, his fingers tracing a pattern on the ground beside Lance. “We got there and had just finished untying you but were still bleeding out, when you seized for the first time.”

 

“That’s how Shiro knew what to do?” Lance asks, keeping his voice as steady as he can.

 

“No, he knew before.” Keith swallows. “It’s how _I_ learned what to do, but when you seized after getting out of the pods I froze and I panicked. Instead of actually helping I just stood there, watching everything play out.”

 

Lance doesn’t respond to that past nodding slowly, he isn’t quite sure what to say. Keith continues talking anyway. “Then, after you seized, the room filled with sentries and we had to fight to get out but–” Lance cuts him off.

 

“Leaving my side after I just had a seizure? How considerate.” Lance laughs as he says this, pushes gently at Keith’s shoulder, but the other simply smiles gently. A twitch of his lips so quick that if Lance had blinked he would have missed it.

 

“We had more important things, like not letting you – or each other – get killed.”

 

“I guess I’ll let you off then.” Lance declares with a huff.

 

“Then, you started to wake up but you were really out of it, kept saying we weren’t real.” Lance swallows against the lump in his throat, but doesn’t talk. “You passed out again a few moments later and we made it back to the lions. Then you woke up again, seemed a lot more lucid, and coughed up _a lot_ of blood.”

 

“I don’t remember any of this at all.” Lance says, mostly to himself but Keith nods anyway.

 

“You mocked me by saying we were having a bonding moment. I almost threw you out of the black lion then.” Lance laughs along with Keith, but he finds his eyes drawn to the way those violet eyes light up when he laughs, pure and carefree but with also a hint of something darker hidden in the murky depths; an enigma that Lance could never hope to understand.

 

 “I don’t regret a word of it.” Lance says and smiles as Keith snorts at him.

 

“You don’t even remember it.”

 

“But I still don’t regret it.”

 

Keith rolls his eyes. “After that, we got you into the castle and onto a stretcher and you seized again.” His face pulls tight, brow furrowing and lips curling downward. “And that’s it.”

 

Lance knows _for a fact_ that that isn’t all there is to the story, Keith’s eye twitches and he can’t make eye contact with Lance. Lance’s instincts burn with an indescribable feeling that something is missing, a gap he can’t explain.

 

But that means Keith is hiding something.

 

“Are you sure that’s it? I was expecting something more _impressive_?” Lance says, trying to goad Keith into saying what he missed out.

 

“Yep.” Keith says, far too quickly. “That’s all there is to it.”

 

Lance frowns, “Are you sure?”

 

“Yes.” Keith’s response is brusque, clearly uncomfortable with Lance’s questioning, but he can’t stop, not yet anyway, he needs to find out exactly what happened.

 

“Keith,” Lance starts, then pauses, unsure how to word this next question. “What aren’t you telling me?”

 

“Nothing, I just–” He takes a deep breath. “I can’t tell you, or at least I don’t want to tell you.”

 

“Why can’t you tell me?” Lance almost shouts this part, throwing his arms out in frustration.

 

“Because I just _can’t._ ” Keith says, standing up as if to walk away but Lance stands up just as quick and stops him by wrapping his hand around Keith’s arm.

 

“That’s a shit excuse and you know it.” Lance doesn’t try to hide the anger in his voice; a build-up of frustration being unleased at Keith.

 

“Well it’s the best you’re getting.” Keith half-shouts back, a note of finality to his voice, like he gets to decide what Lance does and doesn’t get to know.

 

“ _Bullshit._ ” He shouts back. “Don’t you think I deserve to know? _Fuck_ , Keith.”

 

Keith sighs, long and pained. “I know you deserve to know but I just don’t want to talk about it.” His voice is quieter as he says the next part. “Just drop it, Lance. Please.”

 

“Keith, just tell me.” Lance says. His mind is running a mile a minute to try and figure just what could have been bad enough to effect Keith like this. He runs through scenarios of injuries and spells and weapons and _nothing_ seems to come close enough to make sense with the amount of pure, unadulterated pain that Keith’s expression holds.

 

“Lance,” Keith whispers, voice frail and weary, reaching out a hand to rest on his shoulder. Lance registers the weight briefly, but his mind is too focused on whatever Keith will say next to care. “You died.”

 

And _wow._ Whatever Lance had been expecting pales in significance to that.

 

“What?” He asks, voice weak.

 

“You seized and your heart just stopped beating. I was the one who noticed first when I didn’t see your chest rising.”

 

He died. No breathing, no heartbeat, nothing. The knowledge of that numbs his insides, chills him right down to the bone because all he can focus on is _holy fucking shit I actually died_. Keith’s hand on his shoulder becomes grounding as Lance struggles to fight off a panic attack, taking deep breaths and trying to see past the blackness slowly filling his vision.

 

It’s only when he feels every muscle in his body freeze that he thinks _this isn’t a usual panic attack_.

 

His legs buckle and he falls to the ground as the edges of his vision become grey.

 

Unlike his other seizures, Lance maintains some degree of consciousness throughout it. Enough to register the jerking of his limbs and the pain as different joints bang against the floor, he hears Keith swear and the sound of footsteps before he feels hands on him, rolling him onto his side and placing something under his head – _thank fuck_ – which makes it slightly less painful.

 

It passes in a blurry haze of pain and colours twisting together in his limited vision; hues of red and yellow mainly but also joined with greens and blacks. Somewhere, he thinks he should recognise those colours and the people wearing them, but his brain is filled with too much fog to be of any use.

 

After what feels like hours, but is probably only a matter of minutes, his limbs slow in their seizing and fall limply to rest on the ground. He hears someone, maybe Shiro, say something about the infirmary and then he’s being picked up and his aching body is being jostled around and he groans, burying his face into something warm.

 

“He’s coming around.” Someone says and Lance wants to fight it, wants to fade into the delightful oblivion teasing him in the back of his mind, but before he can even think about relaxing more, someone is pinching the skin on his cheek painfully.

 

“ _G’rroff_.” He groans, trying to swat whoever’s hand it is away.

 

“Lance, you need to stay awake until we can scan you.” That’s Coran’s voice now. _God_ , he thinks bitterly, _are they having a Lance Is Dying party?_

 

Lance cooperates, barely. He feels thick, weighed down with nothing but exhaustion. He shuts his eyes and opens them to the shore at Varadero beach and his siblings talking in the distance, the voices of his teammates fade as he runs over, _Mama_ , he shouts. He shuts his eyes again and opens them in the infirmary staring at the white ceiling and listening to a chatter that is distinctly not his family.

 

He aches with a deep longing for something he didn’t even really have; not then anyway.

 

“You awake?” Someone asks but Lance is too unfocused to register who.

 

“Y’s.” He slurs out.

 

“Good, stay with us for just a few more ticks.” He hears a whir of machinery, feels an icy coldness envelope him and shivers despite his protesting body. There’s someone talking again but the noise of machinery drowns it out.

 

“Wh’t’s goin’ on?” Lance struggles to fit the words out past his swollen tongue and dry mouth.

 

“You had another seizure and we’re running some tests to see if we can identify a particular cause.” Was that Shiro talking? It sounded like him.

 

God, Lance is so tired. All he wants is to fall asleep, so he does, ignoring the voices telling him to stay awake.

 

He dreams of Varadero beach and wonders if he will ever find another place to call home.

 

When he wakes, it’s to silence and sheets that are far too warm. He’s sweating under two blankets and he pushes them to the side, unknowingly disturbing someone sleeping on the edge of his bed – _Keith_?

 

Keith shoots upright, eyes flickering around the room until he establishes his source of disruption was Lance, then his body relaxes and Lance notices just how tired the other looks.

 

“How are you feeling?” He asks and Lance sighs, tired of hearing this question.

 

“I’ve been better.” Lance answers honestly.

 

“Do you want to go back to your room? Or would you prefer to stay here?” Keith asks, violet eyes meeting his own.

 

“My room please, if that’s an option.” Lance coughs weakly. “What time is it?” He asks, looking around at the slightly darkened room.

 

“Yeah of course, give me a second. And it’s around five pm CST.” Keith says, standing up and moving around until he finds a glass of water and Lance is reminded of the first time he woke up in the infirmary after seizing. He sips the water gently, taking only enough to wet his throat before Keith moves the glass away.

 

“How come you were sleeping on my bed?” Lance asks, curious more than insulting but Keith still blushes a dark red and mutters under his breath.

 

“I was just resting my eyes!” Keith protests.

 

“On my bed.” Lance says raising an eyebrow, laughing as Keith turns an even darker shade of red, almost bright enough to match his lion.

 

“I just wanted to make sure you were okay, since I kind of triggered the seizure.” Keith confesses, looking anywhere but at Lance.

 

“You think you caused this?” Lance is shocked, confused because _how_ could Keith even think of blaming himself. “Nah man, Haggar caused this with her freaky magic. You know that. It wasn’t your fault.”

 

“But they established the seizures can be brought on by intense emotional distress, it’s why you seized then. Because I told you what happened during the escape.” Keith sounds panicked.

 

“But you didn’t know that then, none of us did.” Lance uses the same tone he does when addressing misbehaving younger siblings or cousins; stern without leaving room for arguments. “You can’t blame yourself when you didn’t even know. It’s not fair.”

 

Keith doesn’t respond to that but from the hard set to his shoulders as he helps Lance up from the bed, he can tell the other didn’t believe him. It’s okay, he will have time later to deal with Keith’s guilt complex later.

 

Just like before, Keith helps Lance back to his room, stopping briefly at the kitchen to grab some food. Lance feels less in-pain this time though, so he mostly manages the walk himself, leaning on Keith every so often when his legs threaten to collapse.

 

He sits down on his bed, already feeling the muscular ache starting to fade to nothing more than a slight irritation. He thinks this seizure must have been _a lot_ better than the previous ones for the pain to already be fading. Maybe it’s getting better, he thinks hopefully. After all, Coran did say this thing might be temporary.

 

Keith is almost out of the door when he turns back around to face Lance who is still sat on the edge of his bed staring at the floor.

 

“How come you never told anyone?” He asks quietly, leaning against the doorframe.

 

“About what?” Lance asks, frowning.

 

“Your ADHD. Did you not trust us enough, or? You know we wouldn’t have judged you for it or anything? It would have definitely stopped us getting as irritated at you for not paying attention.” It’s clearly something that has been weighing down on Keith’s mind for a while so Lance answers as honestly as he can.

 

“It’s never been considered a good thing. Teachers automatically labelled me as a trouble maker, I was branded as a good-for-nothing simply because of how my brain works.” He laughs bitterly. “It was the same at the Garrison, Iverson never let me have a break because of it. I needed to work twice as hard to get half as far as everyone else in his eyes. It sucked.”

 

Lance takes a deep breath. “I guess I didn’t mention it because I didn’t want you all to think any less of me in this because of something I can’t control. I didn’t want you all to just automatically exclude me because I’m not neurotypical, because that’s what happens everywhere else.”  Tears burn his eyes at the end of his half rant and Keith is quiet enough in the doorway that Lance thinks he’s left until he opens his eyes and sees Keith moving to stand in front of him and pull him up to his feet.

 

Lance barely has a second to wonder what is happening before a pair of arms are wrapped around him tight enough to limit his oxygen supply. “Don’t you dare think you’re less than us because of this.” Keith whispers against Lance’s neck.

 

Lance places his arms around Keith’s back as he considers what he other just said. “Okay.” He mutters back.

 

They stand, holding each other, for a few moments longer than what is probably socially acceptable, until Lance’s legs begin to buckle and threaten to collapse against Keith.

 

Keith moves away from Lance, gently pushing the blue paladin down onto the bed. “I’ll see you later.” He mutters as he leaves Lance alone with nothing but his thoughts and racing heart for company.

 

It’s not until five minutes later when Lance realise just how much lighter Keith’s words made him feel inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> leave kudos/comments if you enjoyed!
> 
> [ also you can buy me a coffee](https://ko-fi.com/A14216Z6) thank you!


	4. the walls are caving in again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mood Swings(tm)

It’s a few hours later when Lance tiredly stumbles out of his room, desperate for a drink and a snack. The small nap he took did nothing to elevate his tiredness, instead leaving him feeling even more drowsy and lethargic. The only real victory is that he didn’t have a nightmare again, he didn’t need to feel this tired as well as painfully anxious. It would probably result in him accidentally karate chopping anyone who snuck up on him.

 

He’s almost to the dining room when he hears his teammates voices, they appear to be having a heated discussion and Lance hesitates before entering, not wanting to intrude on any arguments. Someone, probably Allura, bangs something on the table and everyone shuts up, Lance is almost at the door ready to enter when she starts talking. Out of a sense of curiosity, he remains hidden just behind the door.

 

“We shall start by stating what we know.” She says, using the diplomatic voice she uses at gatherings and celebrations to remind everyone of her royal background and superior status as their leader.

 

“Lance has epilepsy. And it might be permanent.” _Permanent?_ Now that’s new, and interesting. And also, painfully terrifying but Lance decides not to focus on that.

 

Lance remembers, clear as day, Pidge saying this would probably only be temporary. Did she lie? Or did they discover something else while doing the scans? More importantly: will he be stuck this way forever? A heavy ball of anxiety settles in the centre of his chest but he tries to push it away.

 

“The seizures can be triggered by emotional distress.” Keith says, his voice muffled as if he’s talking around something. Probably food, or perhaps a hand resting in front of his face.

 

Allura sighs, “Then that makes him a liability in the field.” Lance freezes. “If something were to happen during a mission and Lance had a seizure it could have severe consequences. It’s better if we keep him grounded at the castle until we figure out how to cure it, or at least control it.”

 

So, he’s a liability now, huh? It sits heavily in his stomach and he leans against the wall as his legs turn weak underneath him.

 

An uncomfortably familiar voice rings around his head, _“Maybe we’re better off without Lance.”_

 

He tries not to think about how this means that, to some extent, the Galra were right. He _is_ letting his team down, he _is_ the weakest link. Maybe they would have been better finding another blue paladin instead of going back for him.

 

“We can’t just go on missions without Lance though, what if we need him?” Thanks Keith for providing support, even if the Princess is right.

 

“Well then we will avoid large scale missions until we find a cure.” That’s Shiro now, Lance sighs quietly and lets the back of his head hit the wall quietly. He doesn’t want to drag the team down any more than he needs to.

 

“What if…” Hunk starts, then pauses, Lance hears him take a deep breath. “Wait never mind.”

 

“What were you going to say?” Shiro asks, “If you could have a reasonable suggestion then we need to hear it.”

 

Hunk groans, “Well I don’t want this to be noted as my idea but what if we just…” there’s a pause in which Lance hears some kind of movement. “Found someone else to pilot the blue lion? Just temporarily, obviously.”

 

Lance has only had his heart broken once, the girl had cheated on him with someone she hadn’t even liked and laughed about it to his friends. He remembers the sinking, crushing feeling that settled in his stomach and spread all over his body.

 

Lance feels like that right now. He fights for some semblance of control over his reactions but it’s like Hunk’s words turned on a faucet and now his heart is pumping water around his body instead of blood and Lance is _drowning_.

 

Water wells up in his eyes and he turns and runs before someone comes out and finds him there, every bit as weak as they believe him to be.

 

He makes it back to his room and paces up and down in the small space, hands wringing through his hair.

_You’re not the real Blue paladin, Blue only chose you because she knew the others were destined for greatness._

_You could never be as good as the rest of your team, you don’t even compare to them._

_They’re better off without you._

 

At the last thought, Lance freezes, because his thoughts have always verged on the edge of self-deprecating but they had never before strayed into borderline suicidal.

 

 _Does he want to die_ , Lance asks himself as he sits down on the edge of his bed. It’s a complex answer, one he can’t condense into a response as simple as yes or no. There’s an indefinite grey area that he’s dancing carelessly in, a haze somewhere between morbid curiosity and wanting to just _get away_.

 

When it comes down to it, Lance concludes that he doesn’t want to die in the typical sense of the word, more like stop existing. Just long enough for him to figure everything out and return a perfectly functioning human, like spending time in the healing pod but coming back with a healed mind instead of body.

 

His thoughts stray briefly into the danger zone, questions of what it would actually be like to die flood his mind and he instantly feels guilty. His teammates already have enough to worry about, they don’t need this as well. They don’t need to waste time keeping Lance safe from himself, they have more important issues.

 

Allura lost her entire race and planet, as well as her father’s memories and is now expected to lead the fight against the most powerful enemy in the known universe. Coran lost his family, the same as Allura, and they are both now alone. Lance remembers Coran telling him about his own children back on Altea. He wonders if any pain can compare to that of losing your child.

 

Shiro was abducted and tortured, made to fight in the arena for a year _and_ lost his arm. Lance was only there for just over three weeks and returned practically unharmed, his time can’t even begin to compare. He realises suddenly just how selfish of him it must be to spend so long worrying over his own problems, when clearly Shiro has had it much worse.

 

Keith has never known a family, heck the poor kid spent at least a year living in the desert on his own after losing the only family he had known on the Kerberos mission. And sure, he got Shiro back, but now he’s in the process of finding his actual parents, his Galra heritage. That must surely be something hideous to comprehend; sending months fighting against genocidal furries only to find out you’re _related_ to one of them.

 

Pidge lost her family, her brother and father are gone; made to work for the Galra. He thinks about them every day; wonders what state they will find Sam and Matt Holt in, if at all. There’s been no leads for a while, nothing to even indicate they are still alive. Pidge cries about them sometimes, when she thinks no one is around. Lance only knows because he accidentally walked in on her one night back when they first arrived in space. She doesn’t need more to worry about, it wouldn’t be fair. Besides, she’s only fourteen. No fourteen year old should ever carry this much responsibility.

 

Hunk is his best friend, the only person in the entire world – universe even – that knows every secret about Lance. By that same token, Lance knows every secret about Hunk. He knows that Hunk’s anxiety has increased tenfold since heading up to space, that sometimes he gets so worried about fighting battles and being part of the universe’s greatest weapon he literally makes himself sick. Lance can’t add to that, he can’t in good conscience sit there and add to his friend’s anxiety, he isn’t that selfish.

 

He’s overwhelmed with the guilt, so much so that it chokes him; bile rises at the back of his throat and he swallows against it. This is exactly what the Galra said, he _is_ a burden on the team, a problem they’re too polite to get rid of.

 

Lance knows, realistically, that he can’t leave Voltron. But it doesn’t mean he has ever stopped wanting it, and now he knows it would be the best thing to happen for the team. But now, he has a duty; _defend the universe_. It would be selfish to back out, more so than prioritising his own struggles over the team’s. Instead, he settles for the idea of working to be better, of improving himself enough so that he doesn’t drag the team down. To prove he’s worthy to pilot the blue lion.

 

He also needs to get _a lot_ better at internalising things. Lance can’t worry them about every little thing anymore; sure, if something big comes up, he’ll go to them for help but otherwise he needs to learn how to deal with his own problems. Additionally, he needs to show them that he’s okay, otherwise they will never stop worrying.

 

The lump of anxiety and fear in his stomach has turned into something more manageable, a dead weight of numbness that leaves him functioning like a robot, too zoned out to really do anything productive. He shakes his head and plasters a smile onto his face before changing into some casual clothes. Lance reluctantly opens the door to his room, and begins his walk to the kitchen, deciding it’s better to start earlier than later.

 

He’s a corridor away when he runs into Hunk.

 

“I was just about to come get you for dinner.” Hunk says, smiling at him. “Keith told us what happened earlier so we all decided to let you rest.”

 

Lance smiles back, “Thanks for that, I feel so much better.” He lies, but Hunk believes it. Lance can tell in the way that the other straightens up, the smile seems to reach his eyes now and he revels in that. _I did that_ , he thinks, _I made it better, even if it’s just for a moment_.

 

His role on the team had always been to tie them together, the comedic relief that helped lighten the mood and make sure none of them got too caught up in any bad moods. He had helped them in ways he knew would work: training with Keith, cooking with Hunk, letting Pidge bounce ideas off him. It was simple, but he did it well and with pride. Just because he’s now the reason they’re in a bad mood doesn’t mean he can’t fix it.

 

With a lighter spirit, he follows Hunk towards the dining room. Almost immediately upon entry, he is bombarded with a dozen questions concerning his wellbeing. He brushes them off with a light-hearted jab and a reassurance that he is, in fact, fine. They all seem to believe it, unlike that morning when he’d been able to feel Shiro’s disbelieving glances, now there is nothing. Or if there is, he doesn’t notice it, which is the more likely option but Lance chooses to believe he’s doing good here.

 

He slides into his seat and winks at Allura who, unlike her previous responses, smiles at him softly. “It’s good to see you’re feeling better.” She says.

 

It feels wrong, usually Allura would brush off his flirtations with nothing more than a roll of her eyes, maybe a snide comment. She’s never been outright nice to him regarding it before. Lance smiles back at her anyway, ignoring the anxiety bubbling in his stomach.

 

There’s a few moments of calm chatter, Lance lets himself fade into the background, jumping into a conversation every so often just to make sure nobody starts to worry about him. It works, for the most part. Of course, they’re all naturally worried because just over a week ago he was being held prisoner by the galra, now he’s alive and okay but it’s almost like they can’t believe it. Like they expect to blink and he’ll be gone. Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise Lance if some of them had even checked on him while he was sleeping, just to make sure he’s okay.

 

It makes him feel loved, but he still can’t ignore what he believes, what his subconscious is telling him. _You’re just a burden_. Lance feels like an elastic band, stretched too many ways at one time. He’s going to snap under the weight of how _confusing_ this whole thing is.

 

His body is exhausted and he yawns loudly, drawing the attention of the table.

 

“You okay there, buddy?” Hunk says.

 

“Just tired.” Lance replies. The lie tastes bitter and suddenly he doesn’t want to be sat at the table anymore, but before he can even think to move Coran is placing a strange smelling dish on the table in front of him. It smells like a cross between popcorn and beef – a really weird combination to start with – and looks like the food goo, only bright pink in colour. Lance loses his appetite almost instantly.

 

He eats a few bites anyway, hesitating slightly between each one. The food tastes like carboard in his mouth and it seems difficult to swallow in a way that makes him want to gag, thankfully, everyone else also doesn’t seem to like the dish which means his avoidance behaviours won’t be specifically unusual.

 

Lance manages to eat around half of it, before he stops trying and instead starts to just push it around his plate with the spoon. Keith seems to be doing the exact same thing beside him and Lance smiles softly at that.

 

Eventually, Pidge excuses herself from the table to return to whatever she was working on and Lance decides that this is his chance to go. He’s almost out of the door when Shiro catches up to him.

 

“Can we talk?” He asks quietly so that nobody still sat at the table will hear them, there’s a vulnerable look on his face that gives Lance the impression that if he were to say no, Shiro would just accept it and walk away without any further argument.

 

“What’s up?” Lance responds, trying to keep his tone even.

 

“Walk with me.” Shiro says, it’s no longer a question and Lance doesn’t dare disagree.

 

“Uh-okay.” Lance steps in pace with Shiro along the corridor. There’s a silence between them that Lance isn’t sure how to breach, an unavoidable gap Lance is questioning the purpose of.

 

“Are you really okay?” Shiro asks after a moment, when their walking has taken them down the corridor and to the observation deck.

 

Lance considers the question, _is he okay?_ The obvious, and correct, answer is no, but Lance doesn’t want to burden Shiro anymore than necessary. He also knows that the black paladin would never believe him if he answered yes. “I don’t know.” He says after a moment.

 

“How do you feel at the minute?” Shiro turns to face him, eyes wide and kind and _trusting_. Trusting that Lance will tell the truth, trusting that Lance will be okay, if not now then at some point.

 

“I still don’t know.” Lance resumes staring at the galaxy they pass until he notices Shiro staring at him, one eyebrow quirked slightly. “It’s been a long few days.” Lance admits with a sigh.

 

Shiro doesn’t say anything, but he nods his head, showing to Lance that he is listening to whatever the blue paladin will say next.

 

“I still don’t know how to feel about this whole thing, how I’m supposed to react to _that_.” Lance wants to stop talking, to turn around and leave before he reveals too much but it’s like Shiro opened a tap and now the confessions spill out of Lance like water.

 

“I overheard you guys talking today, I woke up and was going to get a snack and then you were talking about me being a liability on missions, about maybe replacing me as the blue paladin and it just sunk in that the Galra were right, you know? Even when I’m not meaning to I’m letting the team down.”

 

“You’re not letting the team down.” Shiro’s voice is quiet, strained. “The Galra weren’t right Lance, don’t ever believe that. And I’m going to guess you missed the end of that conversation? You want to know what option we decided to choose?”

 

Lance is about to answer when Shiro talks again, voice louder and more insistent. “We decided that no matter what happens we wouldn’t replace you – we couldn’t – you are a part of this team, just as much as anyone else and we all want what’s best for you, and if that means a month away from defending the universe then that’s okay.”

 

“But I’m still letting you guys down. What happens if the Galra attack and I’m stuck here, unable to do anything?” Lance hates how weak his voice sounds.

 

“Lance,” Shiro starts. “You went through something horrific.”

 

“ _So did you, Shiro._ ” Lance snaps back without thinking. “You were there for a year, Shiro. _You lost your arm._ I was there for less than a month and I still can’t handle it.” Shiro’s face drops at this, the soft smile fading replaced with something Lance can’t identify. He crosses his arms over his chest and Lance considers for a second that Shiro might just walk away and leave him stood there, alone. Lance would deserve it, too.

 

“I was someone from a backwater planet who posed no threat to the safety of the Galra empire and had no valuable information to tell them. You were a paladin of Voltron, Lance. We had completely different experiences and you can’t use this to drag yourself down. We both went through something awful, it’s not a contest as to who’s got it worst.” Shiro talks quietly with a voice that sounds different to his usual tone, softer. Lance realises with a pang in his chest that Shiro is opening himself up to Lance, allowing Lance to see the closely guarded vulnerable side to the black paladin.

 

“I guess we both have it pretty bad, huh?” Lance says after a moment, smiling softly, the situation isn’t funny or even remotely happy but he feels like Shiro needs it.

 

“I guess we do.” Shiro replies after a few seconds, the corners of his mouth quirked upwards. “Do you want some advice?” He asks, eyes focused on a point far away.

 

“Okay.” Lance says, curious.

 

“There’s no such thing as ‘getting over it.’” Shiro fingers the area where metal meets flesh on his arm. “In the Garrison’s optional psychology class, they taught us about the five-stage model of grief, about denial and anger gradually fading into acceptance of the loss. I always presumed it would be the same, but it isn’t, not for me anyway. There is no ‘back to normal’, you’re different now and that isn’t a wholly negative thing. You can use this, Lance, healing from something like this means that I’m constantly finding new things to be strong for, new things to enjoy, new things to be thankful for. This isn’t the end.”

 

Lance stays silent for a moment. “So, you mean I have to wear this new, trauma filled life with courage?”

 

“That’s exactly what I mean.” Shiro reaches his flesh hand out to place it on Lance’s shoulder. “I just don’t quite know how to do that myself yet.” He admits, quieter.

 

“We’ll figure it out.” Lance says, bringing his hand up to place it over Shiro’s. “We’re a team, that’s what we do, help each other out.”

 

“We’re a team.” Shiro affirms. Lance yawns and Shiro stares at him. “The first step to healing does not come from wearing yourself into exhaustion. Get some rest, we start training again tomorrow after all.”

 

Shiro moves his hand from Lance’s shoulder and Lance steps back, turning around to leave. He’s almost out the door when he turns around. Shiro is still stood in front of the window, a pensive look on his face.

 

“Do the nightmares ever go away?” Lance asks in a quiet voice, at first, he was afraid Shiro hadn’t heard him as the other didn’t react at all to the question but just when Lance is about to repeat himself, Shiro answers.

 

“If I ever find out I’ll let you know.”

 

 

Lance is halfway back to his room when he runs into Hunk. The yellow paladin stops Lance and grabs his wrist, dragging him along behind.

 

“I made cookies and I need a taste tester.” Hunk says as an explanation. “Besides, I’ve barely seen you all day, let me have this.”

 

Lance doesn’t protest. Instead, he lets Hunk drag him away, grateful to have time to spend with his best friend. His conversation with Shiro still rings around in his mind and listening to Hunk talk as he leads Lance towards the kitchen is a good distraction from that.

 

“So, that’s when we discovered that the thermal generator was down, and I was like _of course_ this is a trap.” Hunk turns the corner into the kitchen sharply.

 

“M-hmm.” Lance hums as he settles down at the kitchen table.

 

“Are you even really listening?” Hunk asks, an eyebrow raised but his face adorned with a soft smile so Lance knows he isn’t offended.

 

“Sorry.” Lance looks down at the metallic surface of the table. “It’s just been a really long day.”

 

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Hunk places a plate of the cookies on the table and then pulls out the chair opposite Lance and sits down.

 

Lance reaches forward and takes a cookie. He inspects it slowly, it’s a soft golden-brown colour and appears to have tiny black dots in there, A sharp contrast from the bright green cookies Hunk had made once which tasted like disinfectant. Lance takes a bite hesitantly and is pleasantly surprised, the taste is a combination between some kind of chocolate cake and some fruity sweets. It’s _good_ , mouth-wateringly delicious in a way Lance hadn’t experienced since coming into space. The Alteans have slightly different taste buds and as a result, their food always tastes slightly bland to their human companions.

 

He reaches for another cookie. “It’s just been a bad day, you know?”

 

“I know.” Hunk says, crossing his arms on the table.

 

“I _died_ , Hunk. I still can’t comprehend that, it’s so fucked up.” Lance nibbles at the second cookie slowly, savouring the flavour.

 

“I know, Lance.” Hunk looks like he wants to hug Lance, but he doesn’t move. Lance craves the warmth and comfort that would come from a hug.

 

“This entire thing is just so fucked up, I just want to go home, but I know we can’t. We have a duty and all that bullshit, but honestly? I’m just _tired_.” Lance groans around a mouthful of cookie.

 

“It’s not fair, we’re kids, man.” Hunk agrees. “We should be struggling to pass the garrison tests and worrying about homework, not saving the whole universe.”

 

Lance’s face sours. “I miss my mom. She’d know what to do, how to solve this whole epilepsy thing. _She’d know_. Or at least, she’d know how to make it all feel better.”

 

“I wish you didn’t have to go through this, I always thought that when we got you back everything would just return to normal, but it didn’t and now I don’t think anyone knows how to handle it.” Hunk admits, reaching a hand across the table to lay it over Lance’s. “We’re gonna be okay though, I know that.”

 

Lance looks down, a feeling of guilt seeps into his stomach. “Yeah, we will.”

 

“That includes you, you know? You will be fine, maybe not today or tomorrow, but you will be. One day.” Hunk’s voice seeps sincerity and Lance can’t help but hope that he’s telling the truth, can’t help believing that perhaps one day he will be okay.

 

“I’m tired of people treating me like I’m dying.” Lance says after a moment of silence. “I’m not fragile, I’m not even injured – unless you count the epilepsy as an injury in which case I am kinda injured – but still people treat me like I’m about to fall apart. It’s draining and I’m sick of it.”

 

Hunk looks vaguely guilty. “I’m sorry, I keep trying to tone down the overprotectiveness but honestly, you have no idea how horrible those three weeks were. I don’t think any of us properly slept, I stayed up with Pidge for almost three days straight trying to figure out where you were.”

 

“I know I sound bratty and I get you all care about me, but it’s just so overbearing, you know? Sometimes I just want to be left alone and be treated like nothing happened, but it did, and being treated like a kicked puppy just reminds me of that constantly.” Lance sighs and rests his chin on his hand. “I just want things to return to normal.”

 

“They will, eventually. I think we all need time to process what happened and we all need to work out how to go forward from here.” Hunk swallows roughly, his eyes shine slightly with tears. “God Lance, you have no idea how much I missed you.”

 

And then, the barrier breaks and Hunk is leaning across the table to pull Lance into a bone-crushing hug, Hunk sobs into Lance’s shoulder and Lance wraps his arms around the others back, despite the position they were in making it awkward. Lance finds himself whispering soothing words to Hunk until Hunk mutters brokenly against his back about loving Lance, and then Lance joins in with the sobbing, deep, gut-wrenching sobs that almost hurt with the intensity that they come out.

 

So that’s how they stay for the next half hour, holding each other and crying. At some point, they move away from over the table to lay down on the couches, but never once break the contact between them. When both of them calm down enough to stop crying, they still don’t move apart; Pidge walks in and finds them cuddling on the couch and doesn’t even hesitate before joining them, slotting herself against Lance’s back.

 

“I hate cuddles, but I’ll make an exception for you, dorks.” She mutters with a smile and Lance finds himself truly relaxing, surrounded by some of the people he cares about the most.

 

It’s warm in the cuddle pile, and comfortable, despite the small amount of room on the couch, there’s really no issue with fitting the three of them on, and Lance finds his eyes shutting softly as sleep tries to claim him.

 

A lack of good sleep and then seizing followed by more pretty terrible sleep is _definitely_ not good for staying awake. He stops trying to fight it and is almost asleep when Hunk nudges his side and mutters something about taking Lance back to his own room.

 

With a sigh, Lance lets himself be dragged onto his feet and with Hunk’s arm around his shoulder, he begins the trek back to his room. It’s late he realises on the way back, the castle’s automatic lighting switched on to make the castle seem more night-like to help the paladins sleep, leaving a soft glow through the corridors.

 

Lance’s room isn’t that far away and the journey passes quickly, a tired blur of colours and whispered words shared between the two of them.

 

Hunk only leaves when Lance reaches his bedroom door, continuing past to his own room just down the corridor. Lance strips out of his clothes quickly, donning the silk pyjamas the Altean’s had provided.

 

He doesn’t even stop to think before he lies down in bed and shuts his eyes, falling asleep almost instantly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i loved writing the shiro and lance scene that was soooo satisfying 
> 
> leave kudos/comments if you enjoyed!
> 
> [ also you can buy me a coffee here](https://ko-fi.com/A14216Z6) thank you!


	5. build me up then i fall apart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also, there's a scene of what I'm calling "unintentional-intentional self harm" in this chapter where during a panic attack, Lance scratches at his arms to help himself try and calm down but he also doesn't fully realise what he's doing. It's only briefly mentioned twice but if that bothers you and you want me to mention which parts to skip or anything just leave a comment thank u<3

The room is dark and cold, there’s water dripping from the ceiling periodically and the only source of light is from the monitor situated in front of Lance. Intertwined strips of metal hold him against a solid chair, bolted to the floor.

 

At first, the screen only shows blurred shapes. Then those shapes slowly begin to morph into something else, colours combining and intertwining to form objects and people. The scene is familiar to Lance, it shows his family sat around the dining room table eating. Lance watches his older sister talk but he can’t hear any of it.

 

Looking away from the screen, a glance around the room reveals a doorway situated in one corner. Two seconds after, it opens to show a Galra soldier. They’re wearing purple armour and holding a long, glowing purple blade in one hand.

 

 _I know them_ , Lance thinks through the thick fog infiltrating his mind, _I’ve been here before_.

 

There’s a harsh chuckle from the soldier before he’s dragging Lance out of the room, the chains holding him in place are gone and when Lance turns back around, the room is empty save for the screen showing his family.

 

Lance hits the ground with a thud, his arm twists awkwardly beneath him but, weirdly, it doesn’t hurt. He’s in some kind of observation room, looking out at the planets around them. The ship passes by a red planet and Lance frowns because he recognises that planet from grainy photographs and his lessons at the garrison, he knows where they are. A sideways look confirms what he already knew; the ship is headed towards earth.

 

 _So, if that was Mars,_ _then we must have around 10 dobashes before we are within reach of earth_ , Lance thinks. _How am I supposed to stop this ship?_ Because, as much as he wants to return home, it’s not like this. Never like this.

Lance’s stomach rolls uneasily as the ship approaches earth, they’re close enough now to be able to make out the shapes of continents, Lance can see Europe and when the ship gets slightly closer he can see America.

 

More importantly, Lance can see the tiny little dot that is Cuba. Somewhere down there, his mom will be trying to manage his younger siblings, perhaps even a few cousins. Perhaps they’ll be at mass or partying. In Arizona, the galaxy garrison will be open for business and Pidge’s mom will be stuck waiting for a family that she will never see again if the Galra have their own way with whatever they are planning here.

 

“Look at this, Blue paladin.” The galra speaks, forcing Lance’s head in the direction of a large canon that he hadn’t noticed before. “It’s going to destroy earth, and it’s going to be your fault.”

 

Lance swallows uneasily and asks, “How will it be my fault?”, despite the nerves twisting his stomach saying that he really doesn’t want to know.

 

The galra leans down to whisper in Lance’s ear, “Where do you think we got the idea from?”

 

Lance remembers a room and a chair and his memories projected on a screen for the whole universe to laugh at.

 

“It’s not true.” Lance shakes his head. “ _No_.”

 

“Oh, yes.” The galra laughs, deep and sinister, “Start the electron beam.”

 

Lance tries to resist but finds himself unable to move, stuck watching the events unfold. A loud whirring fills the air, the canon begins to glow a soft purple and Lance watches as it gains power.

 

“ _Fire._ ” The galra commands after a few seconds.

 

The weapon shoots a large bolt of what appears to be energy at the planet below, Lance watches as it hits the surface and a portion of the earth explodes, large enough for him to notice it from space. A loud cackling from beside Lance distracts him and he turns just in time to see the galra pull up a different screen, this one showing a place on earth: Varadero.

 

Lance recognises the streets and the trees and the skyline instantly, there’s people running down the road. He watches as a woman opens her mouth and screams.

 

“ _Marie?_ ” Lance sobs, as he recognises her face. He turns back towards the galra. “ _Please_ don’t hurt them, _please_.”

 

He’s sobbing messily, too caught up in panic to care about appearances, and pleading with his captors to save his family, to help in any way they can and stop this merciless destruction of his home world.

 

The only response Lance gets is that same evil laughter.

 

**

 

Lance shoots up in his bed, the remnants of a scream dying on his tongue.

 

 _It was just a nightmare_ , he tells himself, _just a bad dream – that’s all._

He registers the feeling of the sheets on his body but they feel too confining, almost suffocating, so in between huge gasps for air Lance kicks them off until they lie at a heap at the foot of his bed – half falling on the floor. Lance tries to regulate his breathing by practising the exercises Shiro uses to manage his nightmares but it barely works – not while Lance is too anxious to properly calm down.

 

Lance struggles to focus on anything other than a constant internal mantra of “ _what if the galra attack earth and we can’t save them, what if they’ve already attacked, what if my family are dead?_ ”

 

His stomach rolls and Lance is pushing himself off the bed and stumbling to the bathroom just in time to vomit into the toilet. He grips the edge of the toilet seat so hard his knuckles turn white as he retches, throat burning as he throws up the small amount he had managed to eat yesterday.

 

Finally, his stomach calms and Lance stops gipping, gasping for breath with his head rested on the toilet seat. It’s about as far from hygienic as you can get, but Lance doesn’t care because the coolness of the seat is grounding and it helps him to push away the impending panic attack until he feels strong enough to flush the toilet and lean back against the wall.

 

He looks down at his hands, once well cared for and made soft by the wonders of cocoa butter but now calloused and scarred. They are paler than they should be, and thinner. The small bones in his fingers are more defined and the nails are brittle and easily breakable.

 

It shouldn’t be the last straw, but it is. Lance sobs, sat on the bathroom floor in the early hours of the morning and looking at his hands. It’s a whole new level of pathetic.

 

Then, all of a sudden and sobering, like a bucket of freezing water had been poured on his head, Lance remembers the dream and his family still waiting for him to return back to earth. He thinks about the galra beating them home, about having nothing to return to and sobs even harder.

 

He claws at the skin on his bare arms, trying to calm down and feel something other than the deep anguish settled in his bones, but it doesn’t work and he spirals into another panic attack.

 

Lance hyperventilates, running hands through his hair and tugging while rocking backwards and forwards. Vaguely, he registers the sound of the door opening but he’s too far gone to really acknowledge it until there’s someone’s hand on his back rubbing in circles and someone is whispering comforting words into his ear.

 

Lance isn’t sure how long he sits there crying, but he knows when the panic attack fades he’s left feeling bone tired and achy in a way he’s never quite experienced before; a tiredness that extends past psychical into the mental realm and resides there, dragging him down further with every breath.

 

“I’m sorry.” He mutters before he’s even looked who the other person in the small bathroom is. He opens his eyes after realising they must have shut during his attack, and spends a solid minute blinking until he can see clearly again.

 

A red moustache and too kind blue eyes stare back patiently at him. Coran sits diagonally to Lance, one hand rubbing up and down his back and the other resting on Lance’s bent knee. “Do you want to talk about it?” Coran asks when Lance appears to have his shit together enough to answer coherently.

 

Lance’s throat seems to close up so instead of talking he just shakes his head. Coran seems to get the message though and instead asks, “What can I do to help?”

 

It takes a second for Lance to think of an answer. “Talk.” His voice breaks and his throat is dry and almost painful. “Water.”

 

Coran stands up briefly and pulls a glass out of the bathroom cabinet and fills it with water from the tap. “What do you want me to talk about?”

 

“Altea.” Lance asks after taking a few sips. “If that’s okay, of course.”

 

“No problem at all,” Coran begins before launching into a long story about the nature found in Altea: the animals, the plants and the people. Lance tunes most of it out but it serves as a distraction from his thoughts and allows him some time to just gather his composure and prepare to either go back to sleep or get ready to go about his day.

 

Coran is most of the way through discussing the pros and cons of using Käuls (whatever they are) as a way to preserve native plant life when the castle alarms sound. Lance jolts upright from his slouched position as he’d started to drift into a light slumber and rubs the back of his neck with a groan.

 

Coran’s shoes tap against the flooring as he bounces to his feet and turns around to offer Lance a hand, which he gladly accepts. The worlds tilts as Lance stands and it hits him just how tired he is, Coran helps him over to the sink so he can splash some cool water on his face.

 

Then, Coran is leading Lance out of his room and into the corridor. Just before they reach the control rooms where the other paladins will meet them, Lance turns to Coran and asks, “How did you know to come and help?”

 

“I was checking the paladin stats and saw your heart rate was elevated past the healthy human range provided by Pidge, so I came by to check if you were alright.” Coran answers honestly.

 

“Why weren’t you asleep?” Lance asks, furrowing his eyebrows.

 

“Alteans require much less sleep than humans to function at a high standard. You humans sleep like a pack of Caterbugs in comparison.”

 

“A pack of wh –” Lance begins, followed closely by, “you know what? Never mind, let’s go.”

 

As Coran pushes open the door, Lance expects to see the other paladins dressed in armour, lasers firing at the castle, the sounds of fighting, the princess angrily barking orders out. The usual.

 

He definitely does not expect to see a sheepish-looking Pidge wearing only her pyjamas apologising to Hunk and Shiro, both of whom wearing their paladin armour. Lance feels oddly self-conscious as he looks down and sees he’s only wearing the issued pyjamas, not suitable attire to defend the universe in at all.

 

“Look, I didn’t mean to wake the whole castle up.” Pidge defends, shifting the position of her laptop so she can type while also making eye contact with a frustrated Hunk.

 

“But what were you trying to do?” Hunk questions while yawning, frowning at the laptop clutched in Pidge’s grip and then at the clock, displaying the time 4:46am.

 

“I needed Allura and Coran because I think I may have found something important.” Pidge pushes her glasses slightly further up her nose and glances towards a small vial sitting by her side. She looks up as they walk closer. “Oh hey, good morning you two.”

 

“Pidge woke us all up accidentally, you can go back to bed if you want, Lance?” Hunk suggests. Lance thinks of his dream and shakes his head, still feeling slightly ill.

 

“I’ll stay here I think, see what it is Pidge may have found.” Lance hopes she doesn’t object.

 

“Good, because I –” She’s cut off by the door opening and Keith running in, closely followed by Allura. Both dressed and ready for battle, leaving Lance feeling even more out of place. He hadn’t even thought about putting his own armour on.

 

“What’s going on?” Keith asks, clearly out of breath, at the same time Allura says “What’s the situation?”

 

“Pidge didn’t mean to wake us all up.” Shiro sighs. “Keith, you can go back to bed. Allura, you’re needed apparently.”

 

Keith groans, Lance would laugh at the sulky look on the other paladin’s face if he was feeling okay. As it is, he stays silent.

 

“I vote we have a slumber party.” Hunk raises an eyebrow and brings his hands up in front to try and explain his idea. “Listen, we can all sleep while you guys do whatever the hell you’re doing and everyone is happy. Team bonding _and_ it feels less like we woke up for no reason at five am.”

 

“That’s not a terrible idea.” Shiro says after a minute.

 

“How about Pidge just tells us all what she might have found and we discuss whatever it is? Then go back to sleep.” Lance suggests.

 

“I’m with Lance for this.” Keith crosses his arms. “No offence but we’re too old for sleepovers.”

 

“ _Nobody_ is too old for sleepovers, Keith. That was definitely not the point I was making, but thanks for the support.” Lance laughs as Keith rolls his eyes. If anybody notices the anxious tone to his laugh and how his voice cracks ever so slightly, they don’t comment.

 

“Alright, fine. I’ll just tell you what I found.” Pidge rolls her eyes. “So, I was working on fixing Lance’s paladin armour 100%, because while it was usable, it still had that crack down the middle and the shield still seemed a little faulty, but then I found this.” She holds up the vial beside her, it contains a tiny black dot, flashing red every so often.

 

“Is that a –” Allura breathes.

 

“I believe it is, Princess.” Coran’s voice is gravely serious and it’s a strange tone for the advisor.

 

“It’s a teleportation device, right?” Pidge’s eyes are lit up. “Oh, please tell me I was right. Please, _please_.”

 

“I think you’ll find that’s an Instant Multi-Dimensional Transportation Device, IMDTD for short.” Coran raises an eyebrow inquisitively as he picks up the vial from Pidge. “But I’ve never seen one used like this.”

 

“So, it’s basically a teleporter.” Pidge retorts before turning to Lance. “Lance, do you remember being hit by anything during the last mission before…”

 

Her voice trails off and Lance shivers. He casts his mind back, trying to think of any particular moment but the memories are fuzzy and hard to reach, elusive whispers just avoiding his train of conscious thought.

 

“I don’t think so.” He murmurs after a moment.

 

Pidge makes a _humph_ noise and frowns slightly. “It might have just been really light, not even hard enough to bruise.”

 

Lance frowns, he _does_ remember being hit by something, the memory appeared after Pidge finished talking. It’s blurry and mostly indistinguishable but he remembers being hit in the chest, a slight amount of pain that he had pushed away until that night when he’d collapsed in bed, still wearing his armour, and fallen asleep only to wake up in a prison cell.

 

“ _Crap_ ,” He mutters, too quiet for them to hear. “One of their blasts hit my chest and I just ignored it because it didn’t hurt that much at the time.”

 

Pidge’s frown deepens and she sighs loudly. “I guessed that. They hit you with the teleporter and it had to be deep enough to be hidden or risk it being spotted.”

 

Lance’s brain understands the words said, but is struggling to put them together to form his own conclusion. “But what does that mean?” He asks quietly.

 

“You were hit with the teleporter during the mission and then, that night, you went to sleep and they activated it to teleport you to the ship.” Pidge frowns softly. “But how did they get it to work over such a long distance? And how is the signal strong enough to carry a whole person, even though Lance probably weighs less than most of us, no offence?”

 

“None taken.” Lance laughs. “But what does this mean?”

 

“It means we need to get a lot more careful on missions, if they’ve developed technology like this, who knows what other tricks they might have hidden away. We’ll need to be on high alert at all times.” Shiro crosses his arms over his chest and unsuccessfully tries to stifle a yawn. “But first, we need sleep. Or coffee.”

 

Lance hums in agreement and the small group leaves the main deck to head down towards the kitchens, even Allura, the effortlessly gorgeous princess, looked exhausted as she flopped down in her seat with a drawn-out sigh.

 

Shiro busies himself trying to make a cup of the coffee substitute but after a few minutes of struggling, Hunk has to come and help him out. Eventually, there’s cups of it being passed around and Lance sighs as he sips it, having missed the slightly bitter taste of it despite the odd texture and blue colour.

 

He still feels shaky, his hands are trembling ever so slightly as he holds his cup and his head spins if he turns it too quickly, but other than that he feels content in a weird way. Sure, he misses his blood family, but right now, all Lance needs is his space family, and that’s okay.

 

Breakfast passes in a tired haze of half-hearted conversations and mumbled thanks to Hunk for actually cooking something decent for them to eat. Pidge explains some more about the teleporter-thing, but Lance zones out as his brain decides that focusing on the mice running along the table and eating from the spoon Pidge waves about as she talks is more important.

 

Someone clears their throat and Lance jolts slightly in his seat, attention snapping back to the conversation only to find everyone already staring at him, expecting an answer. Lance swallows awkwardly, “What?”

 

“I asked if you slept well?” Shiro sounds exasperated but his face betrays the concern he feels.

 

Lance makes eye contact with Coran who shifts ever so slightly, Lance understands then that whatever he tells the team, Coran will stay out of it. “Like a log.” He says with a far too wide smile that seems to pull apart his face.

 

“What happened to your arms?” Keith asks, then cringes in on himself as he realises how blunt that was.

 

Lance is confused for a second, until he looks down where his shirt has ridden up and sees the red lines scratched onto his arms. The panic attack from this morning had passed in a blur but if he were to guess, he’d say that’s where they had come from.

 

“I must have got too hot while I slept.” Lance says with a shrug, trying to hide the slight tremor to his voice and hoping they buy the story. Unlikely, but he can pray.

 

Keith looks disbelieving, but doesn’t question Lance further. None of them do, and he is thankful. Though, Lance realises with a sigh, this probably means he’ll get at least one well-meaning person talking to him later, but he can deal with that. As long as it isn’t right now. As long as he has time to mentally prepare for that draining conversation.

 

Allura grants them free time until morning training which will begin at nine, Lance briefly considers heading back towards his room and sleeping but he remembers his dream and settles for hanging around watching Hunk and Pidge working on something together.

 

He mostly daydreams, about missions and alien planets. Strangely enough, Keith makes his way into a few as well. Lance brushes it off as him remembering the red paladins concern recently and thinks nothing more of it.

 

Lance thinks briefly about the epilepsy they diagnosed him with, even after having multiple seizures, it still doesn’t feel real. Then, he remembers listening in on the groups conversation as they discussed this. More importantly, he remembers someone saying it was triggered by emotional distress.

 

Even more importantly, after his nightmare he was _very_ emotionally distressed and he didn’t have a seizure. They could be wrong – he could be useful in the field after all.

 

Immediately after Lance reaches this conclusion, he jumps out of his seat with an excited shout, making Pidge squawk loudly and Hunk almost drop the metal he was holding. “I didn’t have a seizure!” He half shouts and ignores Hunk’s confused look.

 

Lance realises he needs to tell Coran this and runs out of the room in search of the advisor, checking every room until he reaches the med bay where Coran is messing with one of the sleep pods. “I didn’t have a seizure!” Lance shouts loudly as he enters the room. “I had a panic attack but I didn’t have a seizure!”

 

Coran blinks at him from behind the cryopod.

 

“This means that the seizures can’t be triggered by emotional distress – right?” Lance continues.

 

A frown graces Coran’s face, before the Altean is running over to Lance and sitting him on a medical table. “If you’re right about this it could mean the seizures will go away on their own, given time.”

 

There are few things that Lance has ever truly been confident with, this is one of them. “I know.” He whispers, positively glowing with excitement.

 

Coran finishes his examination and frowns, before he’s grinning down at Lance. “Would ya look at that? It’ll be a lot less time for you to make a full recovery now! The sooner we can get you back into the field as a fully-fledged paladin again, the better.”

 

Lance smiles back up at Coran and for the first time since he woke up that morning, it doesn’t feel fake.

 

“I have to go tell the others!” Lance grins.

 

“Before you go,” Coran calls. “I just want to ask you a question.”

 

“What’s up?” Lance asks, ignoring the uneasy feeling in his stomach.

 

“This morning, how come you didn’t tell everyone the truth? Paladins are supposed to have complete trust in their teammates, I understand that earthlings are more private in nature than Alteans but I wish to understand why you felt you couldn’t tell them that.” Coran’s face shows no sign of judgment, Lance decides to be honest with the Altean.

 

“I didn’t want them to worry.” Lance sighs loudly. “Everyone was tired and I didn’t want to add to that strain. Plus, I didn’t want to have to deal with the questions.”

 

Coran smiles softly at him. “Just promise you will turn to someone if needed? Whether it is me or Allura, or one of your team. We’re all here for you Lance, no matter what happens.”

 

Lance smiles softly. “Thanks, Coran.” Before he’s racing out of the room and into the corridor, his previous excitement returning tenfold as he thinks about telling his teammates.

 

Unfortunately, before he can track anyone down, the alarm for morning training sounds – _is it seriously nine am already?_ – and Lance pauses his run down the corridor to turn and head towards the training deck. Better to tell them all at once anyway.

 

Lance bursts onto the training deck filled with enthusiasm, Shiro and Keith look up, startled by the sudden intrusion. Allura appears to be setting up something and Hunk and Pidge aren’t around yet.

 

“What’s up with you?” Keith asks, frowning slightly as he activates his bayard.

 

“I have good news, but we’re going to need to wait for Hunk and Pidge to arrive first.” As soon as he finishes, the doors slide open and the two walk in, chatting amicably. “Perfect! Hunk! Pidge! I have good news!”

 

“What’s up?” Hunk asks, smiling at Lance’s enthusiasm.

 

Lance falters slightly, trying to work out if there’s a way to avoid telling them all about the panic attack. After a moment, he resigns himself to his fate. “So, I had a nightmare and a panic attack this morning, not really important but –”

 

“How is that good news?” Hunk asks, frowning. “Also, are you okay?”

 

“The good news is that I didn’t have a seizure!” Lance looks around at their faces, Keith and Shiro looks slightly confused but Pidge smiles in understanding.

 

“That means the seizures aren’t brought on my emotional distress like originally thought, right?” She says.

 

“According to Coran! He also says the epilepsy will fade a lot quicker than originally expected to!”

 

“That’s great news, Lance.” Allura says from behind him, almost causing him to jump out of his skin. “I’m glad you’re getting better.”

 

“Me too.” Lance says, ignoring the tiny voice in his mind say that he isn’t getting better at all.

 

**

 

Morning training passes in a blur, it’s his first proper session back and the team doesn’t go easy on him. At all. Not that he expected them to, but still, a bit of leeway would have been nice, thank you very much.

 

First up, he spars with Shiro and it ends exactly as he would have expected. He does manage to get a good few hits in first though, which he considers a win in this situation. Sparing with Keith is no different, the red paladin had always been better at close range combat and it shows clearer now that Lance is so out of practise. Hunk and Pidge both obviously go easy on him, but he still loses most rounds. It’s embarrassing until Shiro points out that he’s effectively had a month away from training, then Lance feels slightly better about himself.

 

Then, they end up running laps. Running is something Lance has always excelled at so it’s nice to do something and not feel like a complete failure. Additionally, the repetitive _thump thump_ of his feet against the ground is soothing and provides something constant to focus on.

 

After that, Allura insists they try the invisible maze again, muttering about how their teamwork seems to have improved so they should be better at it this time. They aren’t and Lance gets shocked far too many times to count. Thankfully, they all suck at this so it’s just amusing rather than irritating.

 

Fortunately, just before Lance reaches the point where he is physically too tired to continue, Shiro announces they can have a break to get some food and a drink. They all congregate in the kitchen, while they eat and it’s light-hearted and fun. There’s no lingering tension between them and Lance allows himself to feel truly carefree for the first time in a while.

 

At least until Allura walks into the room and says, “We have a mission” in a tone that doesn’t suggest room for argument.

 

Lance is definitely screwed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> leave kudos/comments if you enjoyed!
> 
> [ also you can buy me a coffee here if you want, thank you!](https://ko-fi.com/A14216Z6)


	6. feeling blue and alone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry about the wait! i was away for four weeks, then i had horrific writers block which sucked ass but now i'm back and i will try and get the next chapter out sooner!
> 
> also! i finally think i know how many chapters this will be! and we're halfway there (~woah living on a prayer~) <3

“ _Paladins! Return to the meetup point immediately!_ ” Allura’s voice rings through the blue lion’s communication system, cutting out every few syllables as Lance dodges the lasers currently being fired at his lion.

 

“ _We may have quite a situation here, Princess._ ” Shiro grunts as the black lion very narrowly misses a blast, swerving up to hover near Lance.

 

“ _What happened?_ ” Allura asks.

 

“ _I’m not entirely sure._ ” Shiro starts, but is interrupted by Keith.

 

“A _ll of a sudden, they decided they want to kill us._ ” His voice strains as he ducks underneath a blast and curses as it almost hits the red lion’s leg.

 

“Maybe it’s just a misunderstanding?” Lance suggests. “They had no reason to hate us before, maybe we – I don’t know – accidentally offended them or something.”

 

“ _Maybe, but they’re still shooting at us. Paladins, retreat until we figure out what to do!_ ” Shiro orders and Lance sighs before complying, flying his lion out of the range of their weapons and back towards the castle.

 

They’re most of the way back when Hunk exclaims “ _What is that?_ ” through the comms and Lance turns just in time to watch them fire a purple blast out from a canon. The lions scatter and Pidge swears loudly.

 

“ _Is that Galra technology?_ ” She asks, Keith dives down for a closer look and confirms her thoughts.

 

“ _How did they get that? Where are the Galra?_ ” Pidge curses as a blast narrowly misses her and Shiro sighs over the comms.

 

“ _I don’t know but we need to retreat._ ” Shiro insists, “ _We’ll regroup at the castle and figure out a plan.”_

_“Aren’t they meant to be under attack?”_ Lance frowns slightly, noting the lack of galra around, aside from the weapon, the planet is devoid of anything even slightly suspicious. “ _What the hell is going on here?”_

 

“ _We didn’t even land before they started attacking so I don’t know. Maybe they think we’re the attackers? Maybe they already took down the galra and are coming after us next.”_ Hunk offers, looking only slightly less anxious than he sounds as he appears on the screen of blue.

 

“ _We need to get away but this canon is making it really hard to retreat.”_ Pidge groans in frustration. “ _Wait, there’s another canon there.”_

_“So, there’s two trained on us right now?”_ Shiro asks.

 

“ _Three.”_ Keith offers, looking towards a patch of tree-like plants where the tip of a canon is only barely visible.

 

“ _Great._ ” Hunk mutters. “ _Are we taking them out or just dodging and hoping we can fly away?”_

_“Take them out, I don’t know what’s going on here but I don’t like it. Try not to get hit, we don’t know how powerful those blasts are.”_ Lance can hear the frustration in Shiro’s voice, mixed with concern and stress. He’s too young really, to have dealt with all that he’s been through. Shiro deserves a break, Lance muses quietly. They all deserve a break.

 

Pidge swerves out of the way of a blast and it hits a tall blue plant behind her. There’s a split second where the plant just seems to absorb the blast, then a bright purple fire is spreading up and through the plant, burning it down to the ground before the paladins even have time to react.

 

“ _Yeah, we definitely don’t want to be hit by that.”_ Pidge mutters.

 

“ _Okay, so the plan is just to take out those canons? Are we forming Voltron?”_ Hunk asks.

 

“ _Do you really think they’re gonna sit around and wait for us to transform? We’d be shot out of the sky.”_ Keith shouts.

 

“ _We’ll try and take down the canons, unless anyone has a better plan?”_ Shiro opens the question out and Lance tries to think, _is there a better option? A safer option? One that doesn’t end up with any of them injured – or worse?_

 

There’s a few seconds of almost silence while everyone ponders their situation, then the canon is fired up again and the decision is made for them. Lance narrowly avoids a blast and sends one back, it misses by a small amount but does hit some of the planet natives.

 

If they had any chance at forming an alliance with these guys, Lance just blew it. He dodges another blast and decides that it’s not entirely a bad thing with the way this first meeting – or lack of – has gone so far.

 

Out of the corner of his eye, Lance see Hunk fire and then cheer in celebration as his shot hits home and the canon goes up in flames. A sigh of relief passes through him, one down only two left.

 

Hunk is still distracted, raving over the comms about how good that shot was (“ _how the quiznack did I manage to hit that?”_ ) when one of the other canons fires up. Lance spots it, tries to open his mouth to speak, to warn Hunk of the danger he’s in, but it’s like his voice decides to stop working.

 

Lance opens and shuts his mouth, reminiscent of a goldfish, and watches helplessly as the blast is fired. There’s a split second where Keith notices the blast and tries to warn Hunk, who turns around just for the blast to hit the lion straight on. In exactly the spot where Hunk would be sitting.

 

Lance freezes as a flash of purple spreads through the lion, then it drops, lifeless. People are talking through the comms but all Lance can focus on his internal mantra of _I fucked up, I fucked up, I fucked up._

Something crashes into his lion and he jolts sideways and his head whacks against the seat almost painfully, through the screen, he sees a purple blast narrowly miss him and vaguely registers Keith saying, “ _Be careful, idiot._ ”

 

Lance blinks a few times, shakes his head to fight off the looming panic attack and focuses on what’s happening outside. Somehow, in his daze, he’d missed someone taking out a second canon and Shiro picking up Hunk’s lion. There’s no response from anyone when Lance asks if he’ll be okay and Lance swallows against the nausea rising in his throat.

 

There’s no reason, really, as to why Hunk would be okay. They saw what the last did to the plant, how it completely incinerated it in seconds. No human could survive that, right?

 

Shiro is flying off carrying the yellow lion and Lance looks around at Pidge and Keith, who are currently working on taking out the third canon. “ _C’mon guys, we need to retreat. Hunk’s injured._ ” Shiro orders and Lance is flying after them before the others even react.

 

He lands in the hangar barely a minute after the yellow lion is deposited, Shiro is just leaving black as Lance charges out of blue and sprints over towards yellow. His legs feel like jelly and Lance honestly feels that if he were to slow down at all, he would collapse.

 

He’s running on pure adrenaline by this point, too exhausted after training earlier and too scared for Hunk to have anything else left. Coran is already jogging into the hangar, Allura by his side carrying what appears to be a stretcher, that’s never a good sign. They only bring the stretcher out when one of them is seriously injured.

 

He’s running up and into Yellow, the lion shifts slightly to allow him to enter the main body and Lance swears he hears a soft purring, but it could just be his imagination so he doesn’t dwell on it. There’s a long moment of silence while he pauses to allow the door open, then he sees the inside of the cockpit.

 

The lion isn’t as badly damaged as expected, a few screens flash red and there’s a scent of burning in the air but overall, Lance deems it fixable from his glance around. Nothing Hunk won’t be able to fix at least.

 

Lance wishes he could extend the same statement to the yellow paladin. He’s unconscious – not dead Lance concludes as he hurriedly checks for a pulse, but his skin is marred with burns and there’s blood dripping down the side of his head. Coran pushes Lance out of the way as he moves to stand beside Hunk, pulling a small machine out of his pocket and scanning Hunk with it. Whatever the machine shows must be good news as Coran breathes a sigh of relief and relaxes his tense posture.

 

“He’ll live. Half a quintent in the pod and he’ll be fine.” Coran assures. He helps Allura manoeuvre Hunk onto the stretcher and then they’re rushing out past Lance and carrying him out of the lion.

 

Sometimes, Lance forgets how much stronger the Alteans are compared to the humans on the ship, it definitely shows with the ease that they pick Hunk up. They make their way out of the lion’s mouth with Lance close behind, just as the other paladins appear. Lance feels too numb to look at them, at the minute, his main aim is just making sure Hunk gets into the pod okay.

 

There’s a constant echo of the words “ _this is your fault_ ” rushing around his head but Lance just feels too numb to deal with it, too tired to acknowledge the guilt fading into nausea, so he doesn’t and instead lets the numbness consume him.

 

The other paladins stop him, try to talk to him even, but Lance is too focused on Hunk and his own internal struggles to notice. Shiro grabs his arm and Lance pulls away with strength he didn’t even know he had.

 

It’s Keith, weirdly enough, that finally gets through to him. The red paladin literally grabs Lances arm and slams his upper body into the wall, holding him in place with his own body. Lance’s head hits the wall and his first thought is “ _what the fuck, keith?”_ He vocalises this and the red paladin blinks at him once, before answering.

 

“You wouldn’t listen to any of us.” Keith says as way of excusing his actions.

 

“So?” Lance questions as he pushes against Keith’s hold. “I need to see if Hunk will be okay, let me go.”

 

“Coran said he’ll be fine. Barely ten hours in the pod and he’ll be good as new.” Keith stays firm against Lance, despite the other’s struggles.

 

“I know, I just –” Lance falters. “I need to know for certain. I need to see the pod and see him there, safe.”

 

“Why are you so worked up over this, we get injured all the time and you’ve never been this upset.” Keith relaxes his hold on Lance but the blue paladin doesn’t move, instead choosing to remain leant against the wall for stability. He becomes uncomfortably aware of the other paladins stood around watching – sure, it’s only Pidge and Shiro, but they are both too perceptive, Shiro in particular will understand more than anyone and Lance can’t take the pitying looks they will give him. Not today. Not when he’s still anxious as fuck from his nightmare that morning, still exhausted from his first training session back, then multiplied tenfold by the mission.

 

“It doesn’t matter.” Lance says, and pushes off the wall and away from Keith. He’s about five steps away when the red paladin comes to his senses and grabs Lance’s arm, turning the blue paladin around to face him.

 

“How do you expect us to help you when you won’t let us?” Keith half shouts, obviously frustrated. Lance flinches away from the increased volume.

 

“ _Keith_ ,” Shiro interrupts with a harsh tone, “That’s enough.”

 

Lance’s heart beats in his chest, loudly and forcefully. It’s a damn miracle that nobody else can hear it. He takes several deep breathes. The paladins seem frozen around him, waiting for him to move, talk, do anything so they can judge his reaction – judge his current mental state. To be honest, Lance doesn’t know how he feels: numb, guilty and exhausted would be a brief summary but it seems too hard to articulate that.

 

“It was my fault that Hunk got hit.” Lance confesses after a moment. He pulls his arm out of the red paladins grip and continues walking along.

 

This time, nobody comes to stop him.

 

**

 

The cryopod room has always scared Lance, worsened by the time he was trapped in a pod when the castle was corrupted by King Alfor’s AI. There’s just something spooky about the low thrum of alien technology combined with the tall silhouettes of the pods when raised. It doesn’t help that the room isn’t well lit, casting long shadows over the floor and leaving darkened corners. There’s also plenty of negative associations with the room, especially now when he’s looking at Hunk’s figure wearing one of those white cryo-suits and sleeping peacefully in the pale light.

 

The burns over Hunk’s face have already faded, it seems like the paladin armour protected him from being too seriously injured and Lance is thankful. He looks content as he sleeps, probably dreaming about his family back on earth, and his face looks younger, less stressed. It’s probably Lance’s fault – the stress – Lance makes a mental note to apologise when Hunk wakes up.

 

He’ll add it to the ever-growing list of things he needs to apologise for.

 

Only eight hours left until Hunk wakes.

 

Lance is pulled out of his thoughts by the sound of the door sliding open behind him, dragging his mind away from Hunk and back towards whoever just intruded on his space.

 

There’s the sound of someone clearing their throat and then Keith steps out of the shadow of a pod and into the light, he’s wearing his normal clothes now, leaving Lance feeling slightly silly wearing his paladin armour.

 

“I’m sorry about earlier.” Keith starts, looking down at the ground awkwardly. “Uhh, I know it probably wasn’t the best idea to pin you to the wall but it kinda panicked and didn’t know what else to do, so sorry.”

 

Huh? Out of all the things Lance expected to hear him say, it wasn’t that.

 

“I, uh, wasn’t really bothered about that anyway, I figured it was just your way of saying you cared.” Lance smirks at the last bit, to tease Keith, but is weirdly surprised when Keith next speaks.

 

“Well of course I care, I’m just not too good at showing it.” Keith blushes a soft pink in the light and Lance really can’t find it in him to try and wind up the red paladin. Instead, he gestures Keith over, patting the ground beside where he’s sat.

 

There’s a thick silence between them, Keith has too many questions that Lance knows he doesn’t want to answer. Rather than focusing on Keith, Lance turns his attention back towards the healing pod. He’s been sat in front of it for just over two hours now, his ADHD would usually leave him unable to sit still for longer than ten minutes but at this point Lance is just too tired to question why he hasn’t moved at all.

 

Maybe it’s the stress. Maybe it’s the guilt. Maybe it’s the PSTD. Because that’s what is it, really, isn’t it? That’s what is wrong with Lance. Post-traumatic stress disorder. The kind of thing found in army veterans and seasoned fighters, not a seventeen year old boy from Cuba. His mama always used to say that Lance defied all the stereotypes, with a sad sigh, he reasons that maybe she knew too much for her own good.

 

“What did you mean? Earlier?” Keith asks, breaking Lance’s train of thought. “When you said Hunk’s injury was your fault? Shiro told me to drop it and said he’d talk to you later but I just want to understand why you think that?” 

 

Keith pauses suddenly, hesitating. “Is that rude to ask?”

 

“It’s not rude, you’re fine.” Lance starts, then pauses. He doesn’t want to talk about it, he doesn’t want Keith to judge him. He doesn’t want this to determine his worth as a paladin, because after all, what use is he if he can’t even warn his friends of any imminent dangers?

 

“I saw the canon charging.” Lance swallows against the sudden lump in his throat. “I watched as it got ready to shoot but I couldn’t warn Hunk, I couldn’t open my mouth. _I couldn’t do anything_.”

 

Suddenly, all the emotions he’s been repressing for the past two hours are resurfacing and he’s struggling to blink away tears.

 

“Nobody blames you.” Keith says after a moment, long enough where Lance thought he’d left. “Hunk won’t blame you either.”

 

“But I could have saved him, I could have done something! It’s my fault he’s in the pod now! It’s my fault he’s hurt!” Lance doesn’t mean to raise his voice, but he does. Keith looks unbothered, instead his expression seems to soften.

 

“You can ask him when he gets out, but I’d bet money that Hunk wouldn’t blame you at all, Lance. Stop blaming yourself.” And then Keith is shuffling forward to sit directly next to Lance and wrapping his arms around Lance’s neck in an awkward hug. Lance stiffens at first, unsure of himself, before shifting slightly and returning the hug.

 

“Does this make me unworthy to be a paladin?” Lance whispers, quiet enough where he thinks Keith might not have heard him.

 

“No, it doesn’t.” Keith answers and Lance can hear the sincerity in his voice. He relaxes ever so slightly, knowing Keith isn’t one to sugar-coat things and wouldn’t hesitate to tell the truth.

 

Lance isn’t sure how long they remain there, hugging, but it’s long enough for his back to start to ache from his slumped position. Long enough for Shiro to walk in and shout them to the dining room for a meeting.

 

With a drawn-out sigh, Lance stands up, offering a hand to Keith. They walk in silence for a few minutes until they reach the corridor with their rooms in and Lance breaks away to change out of his armour, leaving Keith with the simple request of telling the others where he is.

 

Lance stands in his bathroom, looking at himself in the mirror there. Wearing only his boxers means that the scar on his stomach is visible, its thick and ugly; pale, raised skin in a circle with cruel, jagged edges. It’s painfully obvious against his tanned skin. He traces the edges of it with his finger, transfixed, until he decides it’s too painful to look back on at the minute and shoves the rest of his clothes on hurriedly, leaving his armour in a crumpled pile in the bathroom.

 

It’s a fragile thing, the human body. Lance has too many questions but not enough answers.

 

When Lance arrives to the meeting, it’s uncomfortable obvious that everyone was waiting for him and he feels awkward under their questioning stares as everyone quietens upon his entrance to the dining room. He briefly considers getting a bowl of food goo to satisfy his hunger, but his stomach turns slightly at the thought of the texture and he changes his mind instantly.

 

“Hey Lance!” Shiro greets, sounding like he’s trying too hard to not let his concern show.

 

“Hi guys, hope you didn’t start the party without me.” Lance tries to joke but it comes out sounding flat and forced.

 

“We were just about to start.” Allura smiles softly as Lance sits down and he smiles back.

 

“Okay, let’s start now.” Shiro leans forward, resting his elbows on the table. “What happened? I thought they needed help, why did they try and kill us?”

 

“Maybe they’re working with the galra?” Keith suggests.

 

“We should try and contact them again, see if we can understand what the problem may be.” Allura suggests and Lance refrains his fidgeting with his jacket sleeve to raise his head and glare at her.

 

“Go back there? After they tried to kill us? After they hurt Hunk? No way!” Lance snaps, feeling fiery frustration bubble in his stomach.

 

“It may be our only choice if we wish to form an alliance.” Allura looks genuinely troubled by that and Lance registers briefly that he shouldn’t be mad at her, she’s just doing her job as a diplomat, but it’s still impossible to push down the rising anger.

 

“We don’t _need_ to form an alliance with them! Tell them to go fuck themselves and leave them alone! It’s what they deserve!” Lance is stood up now, crossing his arms and silently challenging Allura to contest him.

 

“We need as many allies as we can get, Lance.” Allura insists.

 

“We don’t need _these_ allies. We should be working on helping planets who actually deserve it!” Lance would have continued his rant, had Shiro not interrupted by standing up and placing himself between Lance and Allura.

 

“I think Lance has a point, even if his approach was far too brash for diplomacy.” Shiro turns his gaze to Lance who softens, feeling the anger drain out and be replaced with guilt and exhaustion. His two most common emotions, currently. “Is there any point pursuing an alliance with this race if there’s a risk they’ll attack us again, especially since we don’t know why they attacked in the first place?”

 

“I suppose you have a valid point.” Allura sits down at the head of the table and turns to Coran. “Do you think attempting to form an alliance is worth it?”

 

“I think we already have one paladin who was injured by them, we shouldn’t risk anymore by going back there.” Coran says, stroking his moustache as he thinks.

 

“I think we should just leave this system and get back to avoiding the galra.” Pidge mutters, frowning slightly. “Besides, now Hunk’s in the pod, who’s gonna cook us edible food?”

 

Coran raises an eyebrow. “You know, back on Altea they called me The Coranic, not just because of how good I am at engineering, but also because of how good I am in a kitchen.”

 

“Suddenly, I’m not hungry.” Pidge laughs at Coran’s mildly offended face, Lance finds himself cracking a small smile.

 

“Sorry for snapping at you, Allura.” Lance says when the conversation around the table fades out.

 

Allura smiles gently at him. “You’re forgiven, Lance.”

 

A weight lifts from Lance’s shoulders and he slumps down in the chair, suddenly feeling the true effect of his tiredness. He yawns loudly, drawing unwanted attention to himself.

 

“Lance, it’s getting late and it’s obvious you didn’t sleep well last night, so go to sleep now if you want?” Shiro suggests, “Someone will wake you up when Hunk is ready to come out of the pod.”

 

Lance’s only objection to sleeping was missing Hunk waking up and with that promise, it’s harder than ever to resist the urge. So, he doesn’t. It’s only around 9pm CST but he bids his goodnights regardless.

 

He’s halfway back to his room when Keith catches up to him. “I’m gonna sleep too, after Pidge woke us up at like, four in the morning for that little gathering.”

 

“That really was fairly pointless.” Lance laughs. “Not like that meeting was any more successful though.”

 

“Yeah, we almost covered one whole topic!” Keith plays along and chuckles, it’s a soft sound. One Lance wouldn’t mind hearing more often. “We’re probably better off sleeping anyway, with the way that was going.”

 

“I’m just too tired to even think at this point, my brain has turned to mush.” Lance sighs, wishing it wasn’t so true.

 

“God, me too.” Keith agrees. They’ve reached Lance’s room by this point and Lance hesitates as the door slides open. He isn’t really sure what inspires him to say the next part, but as soon as the words are out, he feels relieved. As though he’s finally found a solution to his problems sleeping.

 

“Sleep with me?” He asks, then blushes as Keith quirks an eyebrow.

 

“You could at least take me to dinner first.” Keith laughs at Lance’s flustered face.

 

“You know what I freaking mean, loser.” Lance’s face drops the smile and instead frowns lightly. “But will you? I just don’t wanna have another nightmare and wake up alone.”

 

Keith’s smirk twists into something softer. “Let me just get changed and I’ll be back.”

 

Lance nods and then Keith is walking away down the corridor. He walks into his room and picks his pyjamas up off the bed, sliding into the bathroom to change in case Keith comes back early. His armour still lies on the floor and Lance kicks it away lazily, so that it rests in a heap just beside the shower. He changes quickly, folding his clothes up so he can wear them again tomorrow while brushing his teeth. Lance quickly cleanses his skin and dabs a small amount of moisturiser onto his face and rubs it in, his face had been getting slightly dry so it’s much needed.

 

When he exists the bathroom, Keith is sat awkwardly on his bed, wearing a t-shirt and some sweatpants and looking incredibly unsure of himself.

 

“I wasn’t sure whether you were being serious.” Keith picks at the nailbed on one finger, a nervous habit.

 

“I was being serious.” Lance shuffles his feet. “I mean, it’s okay if you don’t want to, or if you –”

 

“Lance,” Keith interrupts, “I don’t mind, at all. Now get over here, I’m tired.”

 

“Oh-okay.” Lance swallows as he walks over, giving Keith a minute to shuffle into a comfortable position under the blanket.

 

They end up laid under the blanket side by side, close enough for their shoulders to brush. Lance flicks the light off, leaving just the nightlight casting a soft glow over the room. Keith props himself up on one elbow until he’s glancing down at Lance. “You sleep with a nightlight? Are you scared of the dark?”

 

“Helps with the nightmares.” Lance mutters, “Now shut up and let me sleep.”

 

Keith flops back down. “Fine by me.”

 

They’re both fast asleep in less than five minutes. It’s the best night’s sleep either of them have had for months.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> leave kudos/comments if you enjoyed!
> 
> [ also you can buy me a coffee](https://ko-fi.com/A14216Z6) thank you!
> 
> EDIT 24/10/17: this entire story has somehow been deleted from my laptop, including my plan, and idk whether or not i'm ever gonna get around to rewriting it so yeah.. hiatus indefinitely... sorry guys :(

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! Leave kudos and a comment if you enjoyed<3
> 
> also please [consider buying me a coffee](https://ko-fi.com/A14216Z6)


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